


World Enough and Time

by Stealth_Noodle



Category: Final Fantasy I
Genre: Backstory, Fun with Flashbacks, Gen, Mid-Canon, Original Character(s), POV Alternating, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-08
Updated: 2010-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-06 00:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stealth_Noodle/pseuds/Stealth_Noodle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven anti-heroes, four Orbs, two quests, one heavily modified Castle of Ordeals, and the grand fragmented story of How Things Came to Be. Also featuring warped chronology and a lot of dead Light Warriors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic stemmed from a desire to write a better Castle of Ordeals, dabbled in the workings of the illogical Time Loop plot, and ended up taking a shot at fleshing out the game's world. I think the only point on which I contradict canon (other than my changes to the castle) is my treatment of the Orbs and their relationship to the Light Warriors. It's a relatively minor tweak that I think ties in better with the Time Loop.

_Yet at my back I always hear  
Time's wingéd chariot hurrying near._  
        —Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"

 

The clouds were beginning to lift from the moon when Clovis slipped away from the camp and stole toward the river. Glenn peered at her through his tent flap, watching her silhouette melt from shadow to shadow until she reached the thick brush at the edge of the clearing. There she vanished, absorbed by a black tangle of trees and bracken.

Glenn sighed and let the tent flap fall. _So much for the evening's entertainment,_ he thought. Lying back on his blanket, he crossed his arms under his head and stared up at the darkness. _And so much for sleep._ The nervousness that had been building inside of him for days had burst tonight into full-blown insomnia, leaving him with nothing to do but lie on his back and wait. And think. Lately, however, he hadn't been able to think about anything but that damned castle and Clovis, the latter of which he preferred but the former of which increasingly tended to dominate. He sighed again as the fleeting image of the thief began to give way to dark visions of towers and corridors.

A loud snore interrupted the process. Glenn sat up and glared at his tentmate, Dimitri, who grunted and rolled over. His dark hair settled in waves on the ground.

"Put a cork in it," Glenn said, loudly enough to startle Dimitri but quietly enough to avoid waking Maggie in the next tent.

Dimitri half-opened his eyes, not bothering to lift his head. "What do you want?" he asked, articulate despite his state of semi-consciousness. That he awoke at all attested to his edginess.

Glenn crossed his arms. "You were snoring."

"Was I, now?" Dimitri's voice was rich with condescension. "Did I wake you?"

"No," Glenn admitted. "I've been up all night. But you—"

"Then let me get back to sleep. Spellcasting takes energy." Dimitri rolled over without another glance at his bunkmate.

"So does fighting," Glenn muttered, but he knew better than to expect a response. Even if Dimitri had been willing to converse, the best he could have gotten would have been something along the lines of "And what would you know about _that_?"

_I fight,_ he thought sullenly. _Just not the way you want._

The snoring started up again a few minutes later, and this time Glenn left the tent. He considered going back for his sword but rejected the idea on the grounds that he'd find it being used as Dimitri's hat rack. Grumbling, he kicked a stone and made his way into the brush where he'd last seen Clovis.

There was a sudden flash in his peripheral vision. Turning, Glenn saw a dark arm retract up into a nearby tree, metallic object in tow. A moment later, Clovis's upper body hung upside-down in its place.

A comment about this being an unusual way to keep watch didn't make it past the idea stage.

"Hey, kid," she said, tossing her toy from one hand to the other in one of her better displays of dexterity. "What're you up to?"

"I could ask you the same thing." Clovis smirked. "Well, what I'm doing is obvious, and I'm pretty sure what you're doing is hoping my shirt comes untucked."

Glenn's face burned. He tried several times to answer, but his tongue refused to cooperate. "Oh," he managed at last. "So what have you got in your, um, hand?"

A long grin spread over her face. "An improved sense of direction."

It took Glenn took a moment to catch her meaning. "What the _hell_ were you thinking? Do you have any idea what she'd do if—"

"Eh, she'd have to catch me first." Looking as pleased with herself as Glenn had ever seen her, Clovis rolled the compass between her fingers and added, "I nabbed it right under her nose, too. Did you know she _sleeps_ with the damn thing?"

She seemed ready to give a blow-by-blow description of her theft, so Glenn cut her off by asking, "What do you want with it?"

"Nothing." Clovis swung back up into the tree. "I just wanted to see if I could get it."

_She's worried, too,_ Glenn thought, staring up at the darkness of the branches. _Well, why shouldn't she be? We don't even know what we're looking for._

When he failed to respond, Clovis poked her head out of the leaves and gave him a bored look. "Guess you'd better scurry back now. Watch your feet." Then she vanished again, a near-inaudible rustling indicating that she was climbing farther up the trunk.

Glenn had spent enough time around Clovis to know a hint when he heard it. Kneeling, he felt around the base of the tree until his hands connected with something other than grass. Further investigation turned up several small items that he and Dimitri had missed recently, along with the ornate brooch that Dimitri never let out of his sight. That Clovis had managed to pilfer it was equal parts impressive and unsettling.

As Glenn got back to his feet, he was certain that Clovis was watching him from her perch with a smug expression. She never got caught in the act, but she never worked anonymously, either. Glenn shook his head and started back to the clearing, wondering if she was also dipping into the party's funds. _Hell,_ he mused, not for the first time, _she probably stole that Orb, too._

The camp was as still as a painting when he returned. Resigning himself to an exciting night of listening to the crickets chirp, Glenn trudged toward his tent, trying halfheartedly to mask the noise of his footsteps. _She's not even pretty_, he reminded himself. But his imagination had already begun to correct that.

Glenn had almost decided insomnia wouldn't be so bad when he heard a faint noise from behind him.

Instinctively he dropped to ground. A split-second later a tiger leapt over his head, diving through the space where his chest had been, and landed with a soft thud on the grass, its tail twitching furiously. Glenn reached for his sword and swore when he remembered that he had left it in the tent.

Not that a weapon would have guaranteed a happy ending. He'd killed tigers before, but never easily and certainly never alone. As Glenn tried to remember whether this species would ignore people who played dead, he noticed that the tiger's flesh was stretched taut over its ribs.

_Great. It's twice my size and starving, too._ Glenn glanced at his tent, which was on the other side of the monster. The tree cover was too far away. He ran for it regardless, trying to remember if tigers could climb trees and trying not to consider whether he'd have the chance to find out.

He didn't. The tiger's weight pinned Glenn to the ground, knocking the wind out of him. Slaver dripped onto his neck.

_I'm going to die and I'm going to die because I screwed up and I'm going to_—

Something hot sprayed over his back. As Glenn spent a panicked moment discerning that the blood wasn't his, the tiger fell back on top of his legs, twitching wildly before it went limp. Glenn struggled out from beneath the corpse and looked up to see a massive figure looming over him, holding a gory ax.

"Maggie," he said, "you just saved my—"

"I know." Glenn couldn't tell whether she was amused or irritated. "You goddamned idiot."

Irritated, then. Wiping some of the blood off his neck, Glenn stood and tried to think of a good reason why he'd been wandering around unarmed. There wasn't one. Maggie would probably point out as much once she'd let him stew for a while.

Glenn studied her face as he waited, hoping to see a flicker of approval or humor. He found neither. Away from her crew, Maggie's expressions were generally limited to "kill" and "not kill," and the only mixture of the two came when something irked her and she couldn't behead it.

Beyond that he knew almost nothing about her. She was a pirate, and apparently a successful enough one to maintain her shipboard authority during the quest. The rest of her life was never discussed. Glenn didn't even know her age, although the lines on her face and the gray in her hair indicated that she had left youth far behind. It was also clear that Maggie's past professions had been at the very least eclectic—she was the only white mage Glenn knew of who favored edge weapons.

"You let it follow you," she said at last. "The hell were you thinking?"

_About Clovis._ "I wasn't thinking," Glenn replied instead, which was at least half-true.

Maggie regarded him for a moment longer, then turned to face the trees. "There's something here no one understands. Not even the dragons."

"But the remaining two Fiends are stronger," Glenn said, recalling Maggie's own admonition. "Not that we have a basis of comparison or anything, but we'd need the Dragon King's blessing to stand a chance, right?"

"That so?" There was a smirk in her tone. "Bahamut's powers are all light and smoke." She glanced down at Glenn, and he shivered at the glint of light on her eyes.

_Then why _are_ we here?_ He bit his tongue quickly. Maggie could take a great deal in stride, but he was never quite certain where the line was. Besides, the answer was almost certainly "Because it's my ship."

"Get some sleep," Maggie advised, kneeling to clean her ax. As Glenn let himself into his tent, she added, "The thief is pushing her luck."

He almost smiled as he used Dimitri's canteen to rinse the blood out of his hair.

* * *

Clovis awoke the next morning with a lingering sense of accomplishment. _Another point for me,_ she thought smugly, recalling how she had slipped the small compass back into Maggie's tent without a hitch. _That lumbering sahag is no match for Clovis the Great._ Whistling a tavern song, Clovis smoothed her ponytail and ducked out of the tent.

Dimitri was waiting for her. "She emerges at last," he said dryly, crossing his arms as she made a point of being languid. "Hurry up and take care of the tent."

"Well, look who woke up bitchy." Clovis threw a satisfied look at the expensive (Dimitri preferred "priceless") jade brooch securing his robes. Although Dimitri claimed that the design etched into it was the Leifinish word for prosperity, Clovis doubted it. He'd probably scratched the thing up himself.

Dimitri raised an eyebrow. "I was under the impression that you woke up on your own."

"Oh, the sting of your wit." Clovis knelt and began to dismantle to dismantle the tent, adding, "Sexual frustration rotting your brain?"

He ignored her. "When you're finished, perhaps you'd care to join the useful portion of the party. Try not to slow us down again." The subsequent rustle of robes indicated that he was going to brood elsewhere.

_Good riddance._ Dimitri was always at his most insufferable after the party stopped in a town, generally because they were leaving just before he could lure some vacuous teenage girl into the sack. Clovis had worked this out after trailing him in Melmond, and she'd consequently had a great deal of fun at his expense in Onrac. And she'd certainly needed some fun in Onrac, what with Maggie dangerously on edge and Glenn hiding on the ship and refusing to go into town.

_Which makes _me_ the sanest one here. No wonder I'm nervous._ Clovis sighed and started wrapping the tent poles. In the years since her certification, she'd gotten herself into and out of trouble with guards, wizards, monsters, and the occasional mysterious dungeon, all while playing guild politics. So why was a little treasure-hunt making her jittery?

It had to be Maggie's fault. With the way that woman dominated the party, it was no wonder she could make everybody skittish. Clovis tied a final knot around the rolled tent, then stood and stretched.

"Good morning."

Clovis spun to face the sound. "Oh," she said, relaxing the hand that sprang to her knife. "Just you."

Glenn's discomfort manifested as a blush. "I wasn't trying to sneak up on you," he said, giving her one of his more unabashedly pathetic looks. "I was just, you know..."

Clovis resisted the urge to smirk. _Ah, young desperation. It's damn near flattering._ Ordinarily she would have flirted with him until he squirmed, but her nagging unease was sucking the fun out of it. "Well, I see you're set."

After taking a quick glance at his armor, Glenn nodded. "Maggie says it's just through the forest."

"Oh, _joy_."

Although Maggie carried the tent and her share of the items, Clovis still had to contend with hauling that leaden Orb through the undergrowth. It had been a mutual decision, born mostly from distrust, for each member to carry his or her own, but Clovis frequently regretted it when they spent days trudging through fields and forests. The Marsh Cave had been particularly hellish.

Not to mention unexplained. Pestering Maggie about why they were running an errand for a batty king had been fruitless, and the older woman had been equally taciturn about the monarch's subsequent transformation, attack, and messy demise. It wasn't even worth asking why Maggie knew how close they were to the castle now, or why she hadn't waited to make camp until they'd gotten there.

In the world outside of Clovis's head, Glenn was giving her a look that made him seem even younger than usual. Considering the noises that she'd heard from the camp after he'd headed back, he was probably formulating a complaint about her shortcomings as a watchman.

"Take your sword next time," she said pre-emptively, then went to retrieve her pack. Slinging it over her shoulder, she pointed to the rolled tent and cleared her throat.

An unhappy hour later, Clovis tried to convince herself that a whining Glenn was worse than a hike through the forest. It wasn't easy. The sense of impending doom grew heavier with each second, and it had reached the point that Clovis was ready to throw her entire bag of supplies at Maggie's head, consequences be damned. _The rumors shouldn't bother her this much,_ she thought, watching the ground to avoid tripping on the excess of forest growth. _And she's too sure of the area. I'd bet my ass she's been here before._ Clovis kicked a rock out of her way and walked another few steps before crashing into Dimitri's back.

"Hey!" she snapped. "What the hell—" She stopped as her eyes fell upon the structure in front of her. "Oh."

Castles in general had ceased to impress Clovis, but this one scratched at something in the back of her brain. The most obvious problem was that the exterior was completely solid, without so much as a single window. She cursed under her breath. _And there's no way they'll let me hold the torch this time. Bastards. No sense of humor._ Scowling at the structure, Clovis noticed another irregularity: the stone walls were untouched by the vegetation around them. This created a tiny moat of dirt, and the walls above it showed no signs of erosion. Clovis raised an eyebrow and glanced at Maggie.

The older woman's face was as unreadable as always, but her eyes were unusually dark. "Leave the supplies," she said, dropping her pack near the castle's entrance. "They won't go anywhere."

As Glenn and Dimitri complied, Clovis walked over to examine the doors, which were bronze, more than twice her height, and covered almost entirely with bas-relief sculptures. Most of these appeared to be highly stylized depictions of fights between dragons and monsters, with a few hapless humans caught in the fray. Toward the center things became a little more surreal, beginning with a carving of five men whose arms appeared to be melting into bat wings. Below them was another human figure being swallowed piecemeal by a four-headed beast. Elegant draconic script snaked through the scenes, but Clovis hadn't the faintest clue what any of it meant.

She looked away from the doors and shrugged.

* * *

If an implacable force of destiny was going to insist on involving him, Dimitri felt that he was at least entitled to a competent party. He was finding it increasingly difficult to believe that the Orbs chose their bearers based on anything more than chance.

_Or,_ he reflected, noting that Glenn appeared to be keeping the camping supplies between himself and the castle, which he was regarding with obvious dread, _perhaps this is all an elaborate plot on the part of some higher power to get me killed._

Sighing, Dimitri poked at his pack with his staff. This Light Warriors nonsense was the longest bout of adventuring he had ever endured, and it was almost guaranteed to end badly—as evidenced by two years' worth of predecessors, all of whom had been found in pieces, if at all. Perhaps it was an elaborate plot to murder people chosen at random.

And "random" was certainly the word for it. Maggie was the only one of his companions who wasn't deadweight, but she was also an utter failure as a white mage and the one most likely to shake off the influence of the Orbs and murder the rest of the party in their sleep. Anyone who insisted on wearing a mage's robe over armor was insane, even if it did spare Dimitri the sight of most of her scars. Standing as she was now, staring at the castle as if she intended to challenge it to single combat, Maggie reminded him of why he didn't like dealing with warrior types, even in a professional capacity.

His spectacularly useless tentmate was not a warrior type, no matter what guild he belonged to.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dimitri saw Clovis fidgeting with her supply bag, occasionally rearranging the contents. A look through her personal items would no doubt solve the mystery of why his share of the treasure seemed slim, but that could wait until they had either saved the world or found a way out of the responsibility. Or, preferably, until the thief got herself killed and replaced by an adventurer who could contribute something to the party's survival. He'd heard good things about black belts.

But as long as the Orbs bound him to these misfits, he could at least indulge his petty side.

Tossing his hair over his shoulder, Dimitri sidled up to Clovis and smiled as she tied her sack shut. "Given the circumstances," he said, "shall I—"

"Shove that overcompensating hat up your ass?" she cut in, getting to her feet. "Go right ahead."

Dimitri feigned offense. "I was simply going to offer to walk beside you with the torch."

The world flashed dark as his hat was yanked down over his face.

"Jackass," Clovis muttered.

Dimitri used his staff to push the brim back in place and smirked. "That wasn't very professional of you."

She didn't bother replying that time, electing instead to lean against a nearby tree. Along the way she captured a long blade of grass, which she rolled between her fingers as she asked, "We ready yet?"

"As ready as we can be, I think," Glenn replied. Dimitri turned to find him still standing beside the pile of discarded camping supplies, shifting his weight from foot to foot. How the boy had gotten certified was a mystery.

Maggie said nothing as she approached the doors. Every line of her body screamed that she was on familiar ground, and it irked Dimitri that no one else seemed to have noticed. _She could lead us into hell and they'd never question her._

"Don't run off," Maggie said abruptly. "There's no guarantee we'll find you."

"Wow, don't get too happy on us." Clovis's words were somewhat garbled by the blade of grass sticking out of her mouth.

Glenn looked at her in alarm. "Don't chew on that! You have no idea where it's been!"

"Growing out of the ground, I'd imagine," Dimitri offered, leaning forward on his staff. "How... cute."

Clovis spat it out and wrinkled her nose.

A thunderous creak startled the three of them into turning back to the doors. They had swung inward under Maggie's push, revealing a heavy darkness that the sunlight did not penetrate. Dimitri stared and blinked. Light reached the doors, reflected brilliantly from the bronze surface, and was devoured by the mouth of the castle. There was no gradation. No penumbrae. He rubbed his brooch and took a breath.

Glenn made a small, unhappy noise. "That's not—"

"Natural?" Dimitri suggested.

"Screw this. I'm waiting outside." Clovis spun on her heel and began rummaging for her things in the supply pile. Three stern looks later, she threw her bag back with the others, sighed, and rejoined the group, keeping the rest of the party between herself and the castle.

Maggie was silent again, her eyes narrowed to slits. The air around her seemed to crackle.

Dimitri raised an eyebrow. _So, she-ogre, what happened the last time you were here?_

"Maggie?" Glenn ventured. "Are you—"

"It's time." Her gaze never left the castle, from which she seemed to expecting an attack. "Bring me the crown we took from the Marsh Cave."

Neither Clovis nor Dimitri moved, so Glenn sighed and resigned himself to being the errand boy. Again. He seemed to do all the fetching on their quests. "I think it's in Maggie's sack," he said, on the off-chance that anyone cared to know. Muttering a bit to himself, Glenn dug through the canvas bag and withdrew the unadorned bit of gold that Astos had claimed so vehemently as his own.

"Here," he said, holding it out for Maggie. "But why—"

She glared at him as she took it, shutting him up in mid-sentence. Slowly she turned the crown over in her hands, inspecting it as if for the first time in ages. "Still has his blood on it," she mused, then used the highest spike to slice open her left palm. Crimson streaked over the gold.

Clovis quirked an eyebrow. "What the hell was that for?"

Maggie ignored her. As Glenn squeezed his own hand in sympathy, she painted her blood over the metal with an odd sense of deliberation. Once she seemed satisfied, she held the crown like a discus and threw it into the darkness.

The black area between the doors shuddered, and a dim, bluish light illuminated the castle's entryway. Before anyone could comment, a heavy mist flowed into the newly-lit area and began to shape itself. Someone near Glenn took in a sharp breath. As he watched, the fog developed a shape that was nearly human, yet disproportionate—the limbs were too thick, the torso too long, the head too flat. Excess mist gathered in sail-shapes at its back.

_A dragon,_ Glenn realized. The phantom was formed too vaguely to delineate its snout or horns, but the wings were clear enough. The appearance of a tail further lent further credence to his idea.

Silently, its outline in constant flux, the mist lifted the crown in its shapeless hands and set it upon its head. A soft sigh accompanied the action. Then the mist dispersed, letting the crown clatter to the stone floor.

There was a beat before Clovis began to complain. "It's haunted, isn't it? Dammit, I _hate_ the undead."

"Yes, we're all quite aware of that," Dimitri said dryly. "But you needn't fear the undead when there's a mage in the party."

She swept her foot into his ankles, causing him to lose his balance and nearly topple to the ground. "Sure," she drawled, smirking as he used his staff to catch himself. "Say, didn't we have to haul your half-dead ass back to Elfland after you tried to take down a gang of geists?"

"Please," Glenn interjected, hoping he didn't appear to be taking up for Dimitri, "not now. This castle's—"

"Dangerous." Maggie was now standing in the entrance, crown in hand. The blood had vanished. "Don't leave the party."

Clovis blinked innocently. "Want us to hold hands?"

Maggie ignored the question and gestured for the others to follow her into the vestibule. Once they were inside, it became clear that the eerie blue light came from the walls themselves, and it reflected with a ghostly sheen from twins rows of white pillars. A dragon-sized wooden throne sat in the far corner of the room. With a short nod, Maggie led the group in its direction.

Perspiration dripped down Glenn's forehead and traced the outline of his nose. _Stay with the group,_ he thought as firmly as he could. _There's nothing to worry about as long as_—

The castle doors slammed shut as if a giant foot had kicked them in.

Glenn dove to the floor at the sound, ducking behind a column. It took him a moment to realize that he wasn't under attack, and he looked up to see Clovis and Dimitri staring at him.

"Sharp reflexes," Glenn muttered, his face burning as he stood. "If that had been a monster, you'd both be dead."

Clovis grinned. "Better watch out for those wily door-beasts."

The impatient stamp of Maggie's boot ended the discussion, and they joined her beside the throne.

It was, Glenn noted as he approached, an impressive piece of craftsmanship. Years of disuse had done nothing to detract from the throne's polished sheen, and the complex, symmetrical patterns carved into the back and arms were still clear. The yellow cushion on the seat was embroidered with the ancient crest of the dragons. Briefly Glenn wondered what could have driven them from their lair, but that way panic lay. Instead, he considered whether the throne's proximity to the ground had been to allow the aging dragon king to get himself into his seat. Rumor had it that Bahamut wasn't capable of pulling himself up anymore.

While Glenn mused over draconic ergonomics, Maggie set the crown in the center of the cushion. The blue light intensified.

"Touch it," she said when the others stared blankly at the throne. "Then don't move."

Gingerly, Glenn poked the cushion with his forefinger. In a flash he was sucked forward into a surge of light, where the air zoomed past him in pummeling waves. By the time it occurred to him to scream, the motion had abruptly ceased, and he found himself lying on his back on the floor of a narrow, blue-lit hall. At least, that's what Glenn thought it was; the light had blasted his vision.

"Hello?" Glenn called, trying to blink the dazzle from his eyes as he stood. "Is anybody—"

"We're here," Dimitri said crossly.

Glenn turned to see him and Clovis getting to their feet. Maggie was behind them, already standing and tucking the crown inside her robes. She seemed no worse for the wear, and Glenn ventured to ask the question that had been humming in his mind for days: "Maggie, have you been—"

The blue illumination flickered once and vanished, leaving them in total darkness. Glenn yelped and clung to the person nearest him.

"Let go of me," Dimitri snapped, and a sharp blow from his staff knocked Glenn to the floor. He lay there for a while to catch his breath.

A soft glow seeped into the edge of Glenn's vision. With a relieved sigh, he got up to see Maggie standing nearby, a torch blazing in her left hand. Because of the dance of light, it took Glenn a moment to realize that she was standing eerily still. Only her eyes moved, scanning the area in calculated sweeps as the muscles of her face tightened.

"Maggie?" Glenn began. "Is something—" Dimitri coughed, and realization dawned: "Where's Clovis?"

* * *

_The breeze tugged at her on its way toward the sunset, as if it wanted to take her with it. She half-wished it would. Brushing the grass from her knees, she rose and resumed her journey south, crossing the elongated shadows of the trees. They reminded her of teeth, an old man's teeth with a red ball of a tongue sinking below their base._

It was your fault,_ she thought, stopping in one of the shadows and narrowing her eyes at its caster. Her throat grew tight, and she crossed her arms as she turned her glare to the ground. A dead cold swept over her, making the flesh of her arms prickle._

_With a tiny sigh, the wind left her, as if it had been sucked into the horizon. She heard nothing but the sound of her own breath. The leaves were as still as rocks, as corpses, as the unborn._

_"It wasn't my fault!" In the dead air, her voice was like a comet on a moonless night, shooting past the insensate trees to be swallowed by the distance. It changed nothing._

_She took a moment to catch her breath before she began walking again, slinging her sack over her other shoulder as she did. It would be dark again soon, and she had a long way to go._

_She was remarkably calm for someone who still had blood on her shirt._

* * *

"Clovis!"

Glenn was frantic now, cupping his hands around his mouth as he called. Apparently, his idea of how to find a lost comrade was to yell and run in crazy spirals around the edge of the light, and Maggie's was to trail him like an overlarge shadow. Dimitri backed up a step to remove his cloak from the path of the torch.

The thief's disappearance didn't surprise him at all. He expected her to sneak up on the group once she lost interest in hiding, and he imagined her concealed now in a dark corner, grinning broadly. They'd never hear the end of it, now that she'd managed to cause this much chaos.

_Naïfs._ If Clovis was going to rejoin the group, she'd do so when she damn well pleased. Dimitri had been on the receiving end of too many of her practical jokes to think otherwise, and he knew that there was nothing in Clovis's character that would require her to give up her sport just because her companions were worried.

As Glenn and Maggie continued their bizarre dance, Dimitri leaned back against the nearest wall and began to tap his staff idly against the ground. She couldn't have gone far. She wasn't terribly patient, either, so it wouldn't be long before they resumed their quest.

Picking up his tapping tempo a bit, Dimitri tried to work out what he'd do during his next brush with civilization, assuming he survived this pointless venture. Onrac had been miserable. Clearly the thief had nothing better to do with her free time than interfere with his, so if her latest stunt didn't get her killed, he'd have little to look forward to.

Perhaps he should have been more cautious in Melmond. But after learning that the innkeeper had vanished during the last year's vampire attacks, he'd been unable to resist the temptation to see if he could break the daughter's heart twice. And if she believed that Dimitri had only left to escape her father and had now come back to her...

She hadn't been quite that stupid, but the worst part was that he'd had no inkling he'd been followed until a promising conversation in Onrac had been interrupted by a perky voice saying, "C'mon, you put on a better show with the last girl. Try going a little deeper on 'captivating.'"

Dimitri's mind was meandering off in search a better response than the one he'd given on the spot when the lights flickered to life. They almost immediately went out again, for no discernible reason.

It took him a moment to realize that he no longer heard Glenn shouting. Then the torchlight approached, accompanied by a gruff command: "Stay where you are."

Dimitri's first impulse was to put a safe distance between the two of them, but he restrained himself. "If you don't mind my asking," he said, feeling as if he were trying to reason with a golem, "what's so catastrophic about those two wandering off for a bit? The thief has probably lured the boy into whatever game she's playing—not that I find her antics amusing—"

Maggie's free hand was suddenly clenching his shoulder, pinning him to the wall, and the strength of her grip surprised him; it felt as if a little more force would crack the bone. Complaining, however, did not strike him as prudent.

"Happened anyway," she murmured, her eyes gleaming in the torchlight. "Hell take it."

A wind as sharp as a whip crack extinguished the torch.

"Hell take it," Maggie said again. Her fingers dug in painfully.

Dimitri's energies were focused on holding still enough to appease her, and it took him a while to notice that the pressure on his shoulder had fallen away. Relieved, he raised a hand to touch the sore area, and it was then that he noticed the lack of the wall behind him.

_It won't do any good to panic,_ he reminded himself, trying to stay poised despite his pounding heart and increasingly rapid breathing. _The wall is still there; you must have missed it somehow._ Dimitri swung his staff around him in a slow circle, hoping to find that Maggie had shifted him a few inches from where he had been standing. He touched nothing but empty air.

Panic was beginning to look like a good course of action.

_Calm down,_ he told himself firmly. Running off in search of the wall would be foolish, but standing in utter darkness with no sound save his own breathing made it difficult to think. Dimitri tapped his staff in an agitated staccato against the floor, which at least gave him something to concentrate on.

As the emptiness pressed in on him, he realized that he had yet to call out. _It isn't the same as begging,_ he reminded himself, but his pride still balked. The trick, then, was to sound confident. Capable. Perhaps he'd even manage to sound nonchalant, expressing an idle curiosity in the location of a companion who, presumably, had wandered off with the wall in tow. He cleared his throat.

"Hello?" he called, fighting the shiver out of his voice. "Is anyone there?" The only response was his echo, which whimpered to itself until the darkness swallowed it.

Dimitri waited a moment before cursing and knocking his staff against the floor.

It occurred to him to use his fire magic, but in that instant the walls lit up again.

* * *

_Warm light flowed through the gaps in the leaves, wrapping around his skin and playing in his hair. He blinked the dream from his eyes and squinted as he smiled at the sky. It was mid-afternoon now, he guessed, but he had never been good at telling the time of day. Stretching lazily, he shifted his limbs and torso before nestling back into the cleft of the branches. The leaves above him rustled and swayed on their branches like emerald bracelets on the arms of princesses._

I'd like to meet a princess,_ he thought. His eyes were beginning to close again._

_The sound of footsteps startled him into wakefulness. With practiced motions he drew his knees up to his chest and huddled against the bark, trying to obscure himself in the foliage. The stomping stopped at the base of the tree._

_"You little shit!" A blow sent one the lower branches into spasms. "Get your ass down here and stop disgracing this institution!"_

_The voice continued its tirade, but he heard little of it. Hugging his knees, he shivered and closed his eyes, trying to curl himself into as small a shape as possible. If his parents hadn't said anything, would they have bothered to notice one less boy on the field? Was there something so conspicuous about him that no amount of shyness and fading could erase it? Couldn't they take out the part of him that they wanted and let the rest of him alone, leaving him to his thoughts and wishes and dreams?_

_At any rate, it would take them a while to climb up after him._

* * *

Clovis awoke to find herself lying prone on the floor, her cheek pressing into the stone. _The hell?_ Groaning, she used her arms to push herself up as she took in her surroundings, which looked the same as they had before the lights had gone out. The only difference was the lack of her companions.

"Hey!" she shouted, getting to her feet. "The 'no ditching' rule applies to everyone!" When there was no answer, she drew her dagger and backed slowly into the nearest wall. Her skin prickled as it touched the phosphorescent surface.

_Think,_ she told herself, trying to focus despite the rush of adrenaline in her blood. _The lights went out, and... _ Nothing. Blackness. If she had moved, she didn't remember doing so. And if she hadn't moved, then the others must—

_Somebody's watching me._

Clovis pressed her body against the wall and swept her gaze from side to side. Although the walls around her were uniformly luminous, the hallway tapered quickly to black at either end. She narrowed her eyes, listening for the tell-tale rustle of movement.

"Scared?" whispered a voice from beside her ear.

Clovis jumped. In the same motion she began to run, but she realized mid-stride that the voice was laughing at her. Brandishing her dagger, she turned to face it.

A lanky young man stood where she had only moments before, grinning inanely, holding one arm out to brace himself against the wall and keeping the other akimbo. He was a traveler, if the clothing was any indication. Ash-blond hair fell shaggily over his eyebrows and ears.

Her eyes took in the large silver buckle on his belt, once the mark of a member of the thieves' guild but now the badge of an amateur. Clovis smirked. "So who the hell are you?"

He seemed taken aback for a moment, then laughed and broadened his grin. "I could ask you that, as well," he said, dropping his hand from his hip. "Or we could ask each other. Who the hell are we, indeed?"

_A lunatic. Wonderful._ Clovis took a step backward, keeping her dagger trained on him. "Never mind, then," she said, her voice steady. "I don't care you who are. I'm leaving, and you're not going to follow me."

"Try and stop me."

"Come any closer and I'll stab you."

"Do it." His eyes shone like quicksilver as he took a deliberate step toward her.

Clovis glared at him and shifted her grip on the knife. As she did, he tilted his head sharply to the right and exposed his throat. His smile set her teeth on edge.

"Well?" he said after a moment had passed. "Weren't you going to stab me?"

"Don't tempt me." Clovis took another step away from him.

He advanced far enough to put himself back in her striking range. "Come on," he sneered, indicating his neck with a jerky motion. "You've killed a man before."

Her control snapped. Before she was even aware of it her arm had shot forward, slicing his throat with the blade.

But there was nothing. No scream, no blood, not even the vain resistance of flesh against metal. She blinked and stared at the young man, who was standing, alive and whole, where she had left him, laughing wildly, his head thrown back to reveal the lack of any injury. His eyes sparkled as he regained his composure.

"Crazy bitch." He giggled.

Clovis's gaze jumped from his throat to her dagger. The blade was clean.

With a catch in her voice she asked, "What are you?"

* * *

_Dust stippled the edge of his cloak as he wandered the streets, watching the empty-eyed villagers rush about their midday business. None of them noticed him as anything more than an obstacle to dodge._

_He stopped when his path brought him near the public fountain again. _It's a damned inferno out here,_ he thought as he dipped his cupped hands into the water. It slid down his throat as if it were alive, diffusing its energy through his heat-weakened blood. After splashing a few handfuls on his face, he rose and headed back to the streets._

_A flicker in the corner of his eye caused him to turn back. On the other side of the fountain, a young woman with a flushed face was leaning over the water, breathing in the cooler air. Her honey-blond hair spilled over her shoulders in a ponytail. As he watched, she sank her forearms into the water, then brought them up with a swift motion, splashing the liquid over her face and neck. She smiled as she ran her wet fingers through her hair to smooth it._

_It was then that she noticed him. Taking advantage of the moment, he bowed, adopted his most disarming facial expression, and cocked his head. Her smile faded. She gave him a quick, nervous wave before running back to whatever form of busyness the young used to fritter their lives away in this stagnant, god-forsaken village._

_He watched her until she disappeared around a corner. Drawing his lips into a thin smirk, he began to walk again, letting his path curve in the direction hers had taken. Hers was a common type, sheltered and full of dreams, waiting for a white knight to tell her that she was a princess. Two weeks._

_He paused midway to lean against a deserted building, feeling suddenly and terribly alone._

* * *

At first all he was aware of was that he was floating, suspended on his back in a gently undulating pool. Gradually it occurred to him that he should not have been floating, but he found it difficult to care as the flow bore him along. Or perhaps the world itself was drifting, and he would remain behind in a perfect, embryonic peace.

_Armor doesn't float._

Glenn stiffened, flailed, and splashed until he found that the water was shallow. Panting and brushing his wet hair from his eyes, he stood and took in his surroundings. He appeared to be still in the castle hallway, although waist-deep water now flowed between the walls for as far as he could see. _That's odd,_ he thought, once the initial shock had worn off. _If the walls light up, why does the hall turn black like that?_ His next realization was that his companions were missing, followed immediately by the fact that he was naked. He made a high-pitched noise and dove so that only his head and shoulders were above the water.

"Maggie?" he called, fumbling about in the dark water in hopes of locating his equipment. "Clovis? Dimitri? Hello? Are you there?" He finally gave up and dove under with his eyes open, but he felt if he were looking through ink. The walls didn't glow beneath the water line. Cursing, Glenn surfaced and looked around again.

"Anyone?" He listened to his echo, then to sound of water dripping from his hair into the pool. He shivered and searched the bottom for a few seconds more before concluding that his armor was nowhere nearby. Sighing, Glenn slouched against the wall and tried to think.

There didn't seem to be much of a current. The motion of the water probably hadn't carried him far, but there was no telling how long he'd been unconscious. That he hadn't managed to turn face-down and drown, however, suggested that the time had been short.

_Lucky me._

Water was not high on Glenn's list of favorable things. His first major experience with it had come when he was a little boy, when he had been tossed unceremoniously into a lake and told to sink or swim. His body had chosen the former. And after he had finally been dragged to shore, drenched and shivering, coughing until his chest ached, he had been told to float on his back. He never could relax enough to manage it.

_So why was I floating around naked?_

Realizing that he didn't much want to know, Glenn sighed and began to walk upstream.

* * *

_It was a globe of mirrors, a dragon's cataract, a burning bush, a dead man's eye. An accusation._

_Breathing heavily, she stared back at it, watching it drip water and light. Prescience of this moment, a sour mixture of hope and dread, had lingered in her for so long that there was no room for shock. Instead she felt displaced, as if she were waking from a long slumber. Was it guilt, or had it passed into something as cold and firm as duty?_

_She had made the decision long before she drew it onboard._

* * *

Dimitri had begun to pace. The walls seemed inclined to stay lit now, but the darkness at either end of the hall discouraged him from venturing too far from his starting place. As he turned at the end of his path, he rubbed his brooch and exhaled loudly.

_Which is worse,_ he wondered, _the nagging unease or the boredom?_ At least panic would have been interesting.

Wondering if he was eroding the stones with his steps, Dimitri started back the way he had come. He glared at the wall in annoyance. "You might at least flicker," he remarked. When the wall did not, he settled on a new idea and readied a high-level lightning spell.

The blazing rush in his veins was dampened somewhat by the knowledge that the wall might reflect the magic and leave him singed, but he brushed the concern aside and prepared to obliterate the stone.

Nothing happened.

Dimitri frowned and tapped his staff against the wall. When fire and ice spells failed to materialize as well, he gripped his weapon until his knuckles turned white.

"What the hell is going on here?" he demanded.

Indifferent silence hung in the air. Muttering, Dimitri began to pace again in earnest, his speed rising to match his level of frustration. Whatever fear he felt faded in the glare of his anger.

Gradually, as the last of his emotion slid into irritation, Dimitri became aware of a soft buzzing in his ears. He slowed, then ceased his walk. The noise persisted, building into a sound like that of the wind whispering through panpipes. A pattern emerged. Somewhere in the overlapping susurrations, syllables came together and danced, spinning around him in a tight circle.

Voices like soft rain fell: "Did it matter?"

* * *

_In the fading light it came to her, speaking through heartbeats that kept time with his departing footsteps. The world between them was colored water. "It was for you," she whispered, letting the words die away in the wind._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Disclaimer**: Final Fantasy belongs to Square-Enix. I'm just playing in their sandbox. Check the header in Part One for further details.

_But at my back in a cold blast I hear  
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear._  
        —T.S. Eliot, _The Waste Land_

 

"What am I?" the man repeated, holding out the words as if he was delighted to have finally been asked. "Well. What am I, indeed?" He flashed Clovis a quick grin, which was vicious enough to cause her muscles to tense.

Abruptly his expression turned to a scowl. "Why the hell should I tell you? I had to figure it out myself."

He drifted several steps back from her and regarded the floor with a perturbed look. She used the opportunity to run.

"You can't go anywhere." He sounded annoyed, but in the vague, bored manner of a veteran telling a young recruit that war wouldn't be all valor and glory.

_Watch me._ Clovis dashed on toward the darkness at the ends of the hall, stopping only when she was certain that the madman was far behind her.

She turned to see him no more than ten yards away.

_Well, shit._ Biting her lip, Clovis began to walk slowly backward, keeping her eyes trained on the area between her and her adversary. Although she felt herself move, felt the stones change beneath her shoes, and even stared at her own rising and falling feet, the distance never increased. Ten yards remained the gap. Throughout her efforts, the man leaned against the wall and studied his hands, glancing up from time to time to give her a triumphant smirk.

At last she crossed her arms and stood still. "So what's going on?" she asked, trying not to sound frightened and frustrated. She didn't quite manage it.

"I told you," he said. "You can't go anywhere. You're caught. Sucked in. Tangled in a dead tree by your hair." The grin returned. "Do you know what year it is?" Without waiting for an answer, he added, "I don't. Time's a liar, anyway."

In a few swift motions he had closed half the gap between them. Despite the warnings flashing through her brain, Clovis met his gaze impassively. There was a spark of violence in his eyes, and, considering that his throat wasn't slit open, he was either incredibly agile or a powerful mage. Neither option would make for a fair fight.

As he continued to prowl toward her, his smile faded. "They show up from time to time, and I drive them to it. I don't know where they go afterward. I don't see them anymore. Perhaps dragons..." He trailed off as he came too near to her for comfort, near enough for her to see that his pupils were like wells that extended deeper than he did, as if he had lost part of himself and kept the emptiness.

Not that it would matter in a few seconds.

_That's it,_ she thought, positioning her dagger in her hand. _Let's see how fast you are up close._

"It's crazy," he murmured, "what you wonder about..." His face leaned in near hers, his lips only inches from her left ear. Clovis froze in mid-stab when she felt no breath.

A colorful litany of curses knotted on her tongue, and all that came out was "You're a ghost."

He spun away from her and began to laugh so hard that his entire body shook. "Brilliant!" he cried. "Just beautiful!" In the next moment he was sober again, leveling his gaze at her and saying, "I feel like I breathe, you know. I even feel my heart beat. But I can sigh on a stone all day and never warm it."

He seemed to be waiting for a response, so Clovis crossed her arms. "Well, cry me a fucking river."

He ignored her and continued, "They didn't trust me. At least, not enough. I don't know what happened to the other two, but the elf..." His eyes clouded, as if in prelude to a storm. Giving her a look she couldn't quite decipher, he pulled off his shirt and let it fall to the ground.

Clovis rolled her eyes. "Funny, that elf looks like a pasty, underdeveloped chest. You got a point here, or—"

She didn't finish. He had turned to expose his back to her, and to the left of his spine was a gaping knife wound, its edges crusted with blood.

She choked and fixed her gaze on the floor.

All of Clovis's prior experience with the undead had involved zombies and their ilk, bodies reanimated by the nearest evil force to wreak mindless havoc upon the countryside. They were nightmarish, but they were also monsters with only the barest semblance to human beings. Lopping a desiccated limb off a ghoul was nothing like staring at the death wound of a restless spirit. Shivering, Clovis moistened her lips and wiped the sweat from her face.

She looked up to see the man watching her reaction from over his shoulder.

"You didn't stab him in the back, did you?" he asked, turning around to face her.

Clovis's head ached, and she still felt ready to vomit. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"The man you killed. You didn't—"

Automatically she brandished her dagger. _Smooth one, Clovis._ Grimacing, she lowered the weapon and took a deep, calming breath.

He grinned. "You're transparent."

"Leave me alone," she snapped, turning her back on him. "And put your goddamn shirt on." She bit her lip and stared vacantly at her feet. It had been a long while since anyone had pushed her as far as this specter had twice managed to; in fact, she hadn't been this upset since—

_No, not going to think about it._ She narrowed her eyes and tried to clear her mind.

The process was interrupted by the sudden presence of the man's face directly in front her own. "My name's Cham," he said before she had managed to sprint away. He laughed and leaned against the wall. "You may as well tell me yours," he added. "You're not going anywhere."

* * *

_She stood like a stone on the bow of the ship as the sun dried the blood on her clothes and hands. The north wind blew the scent of death over her, mingling it with salt and combing them both into her sweat-soaked hair. She did not flinch. She had not flinched then, either, when the betrayal in the captain's eyes had faded to glass, nor when her own blood had mixed with that of her shipmates. Her breathing was steady._

_"Always the quiet one, aren't ye?" said a voice from behind her. She recognized the second mate but did not acknowledge him. "I figured ye'd come through." She closed her eyes as he added, "Cap'n."_

_"To keep your bearings," the old man had said, but the little arrow hadn't understood up or down, and she had found her bearings on her own. North didn't matter when the storm swept in._

_She clenched her fists until her nails bit at her flesh. "Deck wants swabbing," she said evenly, feeling the skin of her palms break. "Set the cabin boys to it." There was a moment of blank silence before she heard footsteps retreating._

* * *

Glenn felt as if he'd been walking for hours, and his mood was deteriorating accordingly. To make matters worse, he had begun to suspect that he wasn't covering any ground, which was a ridiculous idea that nevertheless made as much sense as anything else that was happening.

Halting his march, Glenn plucked a hair from his head and used one of his wrinkled fingers to stick it to the wall. The prune effect, he decided, was the worst part of being stuck in the water. His feet felt terrible.

_Focus, focus._ Keeping his eyes trained on the red line of the hair, he began to back away from it. He was more annoyed than surprised when his distance from it did not increase.

"All right," he called, "I give up. What's going on?"

The hair slid into the water. Sighing, Glenn leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, trying to ignore how thirsty the abundance of water made him. _And there's no way I'm drinking this stuff._ He wondered what he would do now that he'd found the hallway to be enchanted, but his prospects weren't good. After all, he was stuck here—naked, helpless, waiting for starvation or for some sea monster to come along and rip him into shreds of meat—

_Woah. Happy thoughts,_ he told himself. _We are going to think nice, happy thoughts._ Clovis came to mind first in that regard, and he tried to let himself drift into memories of her. There was that time when... when...

_When what?_

Frowning, he opened his eyes and furrowed his brow. He could remember her grumbling on long hikes, her fraternizing with the Pravokans in Maggie's crew, and her general lack of concern for anyone else's welfare, but none of his memories were more than impressions. Had he ever had a conversation with her that meant anything? Had they ever confided in each other? Did he know anything about her, other than her status as a thief and holder of an Orb? They had never even fought side-by-side—and for that matter, none of the four had ever functioned as part of a group. At least, not a healthy group.

Glenn sank up to his shoulders in the water. At first he tried to pretend that he was having an epiphany, but he had always been aware of it; he had just found it easier to pretend. When Clovis teased him, when Dimitri could be bothered to speak to him, even when Maggie saved his life, there was never anything more than a thin, Orb-enforced sense of obligation to account for it. They shared nothing but mutual expendability.

"I won't anymore," he promised the air. "If I see them again, things'll be different. When. If."

Feeling hollow, he turned to walk upstream, not because he expected to get anywhere but because he had to keep moving.

A sudden hiss made him jump. As the results of his splashing died down, Glenn became aware of air touching skin that had previously been underwater. Looking down, he confirmed that the liquid around him was indeed draining, apparently seeping away through the floor. The lower portions of the walls lit up as the water left them.

When at last he stood, dripping and shivering, on more or less dry stone, Glenn still saw no sign of his clothing. He sighed and indulged in a few moments of self-pity before walking on.

He already felt like a liar. _Good idea, Glenn. Now we'll pretend that we're not pretending. Very nice._ His fists clenched. If he reached in deeply enough, there had to be something real: smoke over fire, clouds over the sea, glass over reflection. And he remembered—if he let himself, he remembered—

Whispers curled around his head.

* * *

_"Where will you go? What will you do? You have no one._

_"What will you do? What happened to them?_

_"You have no one. What will you do?"_

* * *

She stood like painted marble beside the well, an empty bucket swinging from her fingers. Hair like spring roses spilled over her scarf. Sky and breath were filled with snowflakes, which parted for her voice: "If you're afraid, don't leave me. If you're hurting, don't ignore me. If you're lonely, don't push me away."

And he had walked on in a haze of white.

_In the end, she changed nothing._

It was a sport, a game, a complicated dance to a chorus they never seemed to hear. There were some who blamed him, more who blamed themselves, and a handful who affected nonchalance. But the beautiful moments were when perceptions shifted, when worry and confusion fell away, and they either hated or pleaded with him. Sometimes it amazed him that so many people could be so desperate to believe.

He didn't believe, and he knew how to make the most out of oblivion.

The hallway came into focus. Something cold pressed against his back, and Dimitri found that he was huddled against one of the walls. His disorientation turned to anger at himself. Brushing off the memories, he used his staff to stand up.

In his experience, loneliness only led to stupidity. So it was to his credit that he didn't let himself feel lonely, and that he didn't see other people as anything more than transients in his life. Let the idiots around him chase after eternity; nothing was permanent, but he could be static in the face of upheaval. He knew where to find the lonely and gullible, and he knew how to feed on the death of dreams.

_She made me wonder what it is that I want._

Loneliness made them tumble into need. But a fleeting desire, a passing fancy for something easy to obtain, gave him the upper hand. He shrugged where they despaired.

"Is it worth it?" she had asked. "I don't know. But I'd like to find out."

He hadn't answered, because he hadn't trusted himself not to want.

"It's over," Dimitri said aloud, hoping that his voice would clear his mind. "What's the point of regret?"

_What if it had been?_

The ache that been building in his head dissipated through his body, leaving him shaky. He leaned back against the wall and willed the past to leave him alone for a while.

He didn't know how to function outside the past.

The older boys wore robes woven from blood and ink. Overhead the bandied-about whispers of charity mixed with the voices of the bells: "No one wants you. You're here because no one wants you."

_Stop._

* * *

_Trembling and panting, soaked with blood that was not hers, she staggered out of the woods and collapsed on the sand. The proximity of the ocean stirred her senses. Groaning, she tried to drag herself forward, but her muscles felt shredded. It took more energy than she'd thought she had to crawl into the dinghy._

_As she lay on her back, staring at the sky and waiting for her energy to return, she felt tears warming her face. Wiping them smeared blood over her cheeks. When her shaking subsided, she sat up painfully and began to row back to the ship._

_She wondered what she'd tell them had happened._

* * *

It had been some time since either of them had spoken. Clovis leaned irritably against the wall, turning her dagger over in her hand and keeping an eye on Cham, who sat across the hallway. He remained shirtless to spite her.

"Bored?" he asked, his eyelids drooping. The word curled his mouth into a sneer.

"Leave me alone."

"Of course you are." He rose, causing her muscles to tense. Moving like a bipedal cat, he approached her and stopped the moment before she would have bolted. His eyes were leaden as he said, "You get sick of it here, waiting in circles—"

He lunged. Before she could dash away, his forearms passed through her collarbones.

Her teeth clamped together, but she didn't scream. Glaring at him, she sidled away, trying not to shiver as she passed through hands and wrists that were perfectly incorporeal. God, she'd thought there would at least be a chill in the air...

Cham's gaze followed her, and he smiled in a way that verged on affability. "The last dragon passed out," he said, then let his arms fall to his sides as he slouched against the wall. He stared at the floor for a moment before turning to her. "Even the clever ones don't stay, though."

"Well, that's dragons for you." Clovis crossed her arms and frowned at her foot, which had begun to tap of its own accord. Her skin was still crawling from the sense of nothingness.

Exorcism hadn't figured into any of her training. A few hours ago, she would have agreed that there was no sense wasting valuable brain space learning how to drive away something dead and technically harmless, but she was beginning to see the merits of a good warding spell, especially since Cham's expression suggested that he was fishing for another conversation starter. She narrowed her eyes at the invisible barriers in the corridor and wondered what was keeping her back.

_Well, there's an idea._

"So," she said, "you can't touch anything, right?" When he didn't contradict her, she raised an eyebrow. "Then if you want to leave so damn much, why don't you just prance on out through the walls?"

His grin died. Regarding her coldly, Cham drew back an arm and punched the wall. There was no sound. When she squinted, Clovis saw that the blow had been caught a hair's breadth from the surface.

"Because," he said in a voice like sheet metal, "I can't fucking _reach_ them." He stamped his foot silently, and she saw that a miniscule layer of nothing also separated him from the floor.

Clovis nodded. "So I see."

"Do you? Do you know why I'm here?" Without waiting for a response he said, "I'm here because it won't stop remembering me."

He slumped against the wall—the space a fraction of an inch away from the wall—and lowered his head, fixing the floor with a stare too hollow to be one of pure hate. Clovis couldn't tell whether he was shaking.

"You'll stay, too," he said. "It doesn't let go."

She ignored him.

"But I wonder," he added, his eyes half-closed, "if you're like the dragons. Maybe it just wants me." His lip curled. "Or maybe it doesn't, but it can't get rid of me. There's no way I'd know, is there?" Cham laughed once, stabbing the air with the sound, before looking expectantly at Clovis.

She continued to ignore him until the silence became more uncomfortable than the conversation had been. It didn't help that he was most likely plotting ways to entertain himself at her expense. "Hey," she began, then paused to phrase a question in her mind. With any luck she could get him to sulk quietly. "What made you think I've killed?"

"It's a safe bet." He looked up and smirked. "We're all killers, even if someone else has the knife. We're all choking on our guilt." With a fresh glimmer in his eyes he added, "But you, now... you reacted like a murderer. Panicked."

Swallowing her temper, she forced her voice to remain level as she loaded ammunition into it. "So who'd you kill?"

There was a split-second pause before he broke into laughter. "Give me some credit," he said, suddenly and dangerously cheerful. "We used to treat our authority figures with a little respect."

The next thing that registered was the sound of her fist connecting with the wall. Blood oozed from her knuckles without staining the stone, but Clovis was too busy cradling her hand to care why. Cursing, she stared at the split skin and wondered how much it would hurt once the rush wore off. "Stupid son of a bitch," she muttered.

Cham grinned. "Transparent."

* * *

_His whispers brushed her ear, moving in time with the caresses of his hands over her shoulders. Her muscles were knotted like wet ropes. In front of her on the deck lay a piece of cork, and she fixed her gaze on it to avoid watching the empty sea._

_"I wish the stars were out," she said._

_"At least it's not raining." He swept a stray lock of hair off her neck. When the silence began to solidify between them, he asked, "Are you nervous or excited?"_

_She noticed that her hands were clenched and relaxed them. "Both." Feeling the need to explain, she added, "I've never been this far north."_

_"Mmm." The sound was as contemplative as understanding. "Don't worry. You're with me."_

_Reclining against him, she tilted her head back to meet his kiss. When they parted she rested her head on his shoulder and pressed herself against him. Closing her eyes, she imagined the night sky on fire, the heat soldering them together. The idea left her troubled._

_Then his arms encircled her, and she could stop thinking._

* * *

The chime of the clock was still reverberating in his stomach as he crouched in the brush, sweat glazing his hands and face. Clouds thinner than insect wings drifted over the new moon. Only a few yards away he could hear the thick buzzing of their voices, and time crawled in a slow spiral as his legs burned with anticipation...

Glenn pinched himself hard enough to turn the skin scarlet and bring the hall back into focus. _What the hell?_ he thought, staring at the sore spot on his arm. _I didn't want to remember that._

Not that what he wanted had any bearing on what happened to him. In addition to being naked and still damp, Glenn had to struggle to keep from being pulled bodily into his memories. To that end he stared at the opposite wall until his eyes burned.

"Stop it," he said aloud. His voice was only a few degrees away from cracking. "Leave me alone. It wasn't my—"

_It wasn't my fault._

It lay dark and silent in the weeds, radiating an almost living energy that it seemed to be drawing out of the dew, the clouds, the dead man lying beside it. His breath caught in his throat. The black crystal guzzled sunlight, and it drew his gaze into the shadows at its core, as if it sought to consume him as well. Shivering, he turned and tried to walk away from it, but something inside him twitched in sympathy to its hunger. For a few seconds he hung suspended, staring at the world out of reach above him and feeling a dark sea rock beneath his feet. There was no decision to make. Almost without realizing what he was doing, he tucked the black sphere into his makeshift pack (how could it be so heavy?) and resumed walking, his legs carrying him in what he hoped was the direction of the city. All thoughts of the corpse had been swept away.

_Who was he? Why did he have to die?_

Glenn clutched at the anachronous thought and shuddered back to the present. "Leave me alone," he said again, his tone harsher. "I don't want to—"

Go. He didn't want to go. And they towered over him like stone idols, unfit for prayers, unable to comprehend that his blood didn't flow with their dreams.

_I'm sorry. I could never be what you wanted._

* * *

_Her brain smoldered from the heat of the lights and the drone of the voices. Letting out an agitated breath, she rested her head on the table, letting the rough wood scrape her skin. If she shielded her face with her arms, the lights disappeared and all that she had to ignore was the constant noise, along with the stench of too many people crowded together. Her head swam._

_A tap on her shoulder startled her. Raising her head with a flash of hope, she had less than a second of relief before the disappointment set in. "You," she grunted, slouching back onto the table. "Go away."_

_"Sociable as ever, I see." He perched on the seat opposite her and grinned in a way that suggested an advanced stage of inebriation. "You don't have to be miserable, you know. Have a drink. Loosen up. My pointy-eared pal here's paying." She heard the sound of a hand clumsily clapping someone on the back as she blocked out the world with her sleeves. "Oh, c'mon. He's not even late yet."_

_"Go away," she repeated, a jagged edge creeping into her voice._

_"Hey..." Her head snapped up when she felt a hand on her arm, and she returned the somewhat muddled look of concern with a glare. "Why won't you ever say what's wrong?" he asked, oblivious of her growing wrath. "I mean, we're a team, right? We shouldn't keep so many secrets." He sighed, clearly having trouble surmounting the alcohol long enough to collect his thoughts. She gritted her teeth. "We're still like strangers or—"_

_He disappeared from her line of vision just before she would have forcibly removed him from it. As she drooped back onto the table, snatches of the ensuing discussion drifted to her ears, ending with something about "taking your excessive social tendencies elsewhere." This was spoken without any of the malice she'd come to expect. Briefly she wondered when those two had begun getting along, then credited the amount of ale she'd watched them consume._

_Letting out a long breath, she tapped her fingers against the wood and wondered if getting drunk would help._

* * *

"Honestly, what did she expect me to do with a child?" Jewels glimmered from her wrists and ears, and he watched them flash with her movements, hoping to fascinate himself. Her gaze alit on everything but him.

In a few brisks steps she strode to her vanity, where she spent a moment facing her reflection. Her elaborately pinned hair had released a few strands to tickle her face. With a flicker of annoyance, she tucked them behind her ears and opened a drawer.

He remained perfectly still in the doorway, counting the diamonds twined around her pale throat. If he stared long enough, would she feel his eyes? Would she turn around with the face he wanted to see?

Peeling the gloves from her arms, she brushed aside a coven of bottles and spread stationery over the table. The quill scratched at the paper like a dirty fingernail.

She was the evil enchantress of his fairy tales, the body of his mother with a death's head. He wanted to cling to her gown and kiss her feet until she counted him an enemy, or at least a thorn in her skin. But when he crept forward to touch her ankle, she kicked him away.

The drawer nearest him was open enough for a child's hand to pass through. Taking it as a sign, he reached into the darkness and pulled out a jade brooch, which pricked his palm as he clutched it. Droplets of blood slid down the pin. Trembling, he clung to the sting, thinking, _If I bleed, you have to keep me._

She never glanced at him.

A drizzle of wax and a stamp of her ring ended it. _Look at me,_ he wanted to say. _Tell me you hate me. Just look at me._ Biting his lip, he tucked the brooch inside his pocket, wiping the blood away in the process.

Her eyes passed over him to the darkness in the hall. "Take the boy to the academy," she said. "Show them this letter, and do not mention the woman who sold her birthright. Say that an orphan wandered in from the streets. Offer him on charity."

He was receding, feeling her suck the light away from him. It was only then that he dared to speak: "Why won't you look at me?"

She never answered, because she had already forgotten about him.

"Stop." Dimitri's hands shook as he pressed them to his head. "It's not that simple."

A woman's voice, low and wispy as spiderwebs, giggled in his ear: _Are you sure I didn't mean to leave you?_

Maybe he screamed. All he was aware of was stumbling to his feet and running, his hand grasping his staff with the force of a vice. His panic blinded him. _That's not true, that's not why, it's not about you_—

Gasping for breath, he forced himself to stop running. His heart pummeled the inside of his chest. At first he tried to lean on his staff for support, but he ended up huddled around it, as if it could warm him. Shivers ran like icy water down his back.

"They're nothing but memories," he said aloud, trying to work the cracks out of his voice. "Let the past bury itself." His breathing slower but still ragged, he straightened and used his staff to push his hat out of his eyes.

When he looked up, he found that he had entered a room at the end of the corridor. All around him, the light of the stones illuminated the porcelain faces of a congregation of dolls.

* * *

_Blood slicked her hands and dripped from the blade of her ax. Her robe would never be clean again; she went through too many of them this way._

_Behind her, the air hummed with unnecessary chatter:_

_"So where is it?"_

_"I dunno, somewhere in the mud. Possibly under a corpse. Would the party members who actually have muscle tone like to start looking?"_

_"Stop whining. It was your job to keep an eye on it."_

_The sound of grumbling registered in her ears as she kicked the head of the giant she had most recently decapitated out of her way. The ground, already muddy, was so wet with blood that each motion threatened to land her face-down in the muck._

_Then she heard him come up behind her, and she turned to see him as filthy as she was. The blood that she felt spattered over her face was reflected on his._

_Their kiss was rushed and mutually invasive, a fusion of battle stories. When they parted, she could hear the rainfall outside the cave growing louder._

_"Great, now it'll get even muddier—there! And here we have our first up-close and personal look at..."_

_There was a moment of silence._

_"So, who else is disappointed?"_

_"It's not jewelry, you fool. It's a key. A channel. A reservoir of power."_

_"Still could have done with some gems, maybe a little engraving..."_

_She let the noise fade behind her as she walked with him out into the rain. The grass at her feet was tinged with pale red water, and the blood in her hair was rinsed down her neck._

_He had probably intended to say something, but she was gone before he got the chance._

* * *

"Evisceration," Cham announced. "Now there's a nasty way to die."

Clovis looked up from her seat against the opposite wall, where she had been nursing her wounded hand. She was taken too far off guard to keep herself from reacting. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm rating deaths. What's your take on asphyxiation?"

She stared at him. "We are not having this conversation," she decided, then returned her attention to her hand.

It was with a mixture of annoyance and weariness that she noted Cham's sudden presence beside her. "Go away," she muttered, resting her forehead in her palm.

"We might as well talk about it," he said, maneuvering his face directly in front of hers. Incorporeal or not, he was not welcome in her personal bubble, and Clovis scooted several inches away from him. She could tell without looking that he was grinning as he said, "What makes you think you won't die here?"

"Would you shut up about that?"

His laugh was low and bitter. "That's right, don't think about it. See if it goes away."

She didn't respond, hoping that he'd grow bored and retreat. But her hands were shaking. _I won't die here. You can't make_—

"Look at me."

His tone was so soft that she obeyed without thinking about it, and the sadness in his face took her off-guard. He looked so broken that the lines in his irises were fissures.

"The dragons tried to fight it," he said, "but none of them won. I haven't seen them in so long. They must finally be afraid." His eyes hardened as he continued, "The ones who resisted longest, they're just as dead. But it was worse for them. And they didn't stay, regardless." He smiled viciously. "An angel of mercy, that's me."

Suspicion narrowed her eyes. "What did you do to them?"

"Me? Nothing." He shrugged. "I'm only the moon. They did it themselves—or didn't. Nature has a say."

_You're not dancing out of this._ Clovis leaned toward him and punctuated each word: "What did you do?"

He bristled. "I told the goddamn truth. And the ones who ignored me got the agony—they waited until their bodies crumbled. How the hell is that _my_ fault?" He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice had calmed. "It's better to do it when you still have control."

Clovis's eyes widened in comprehension. Sputtering threats, she jumped to her feet and backed away from him.

As if her anger was enough for them both, he smiled sedately. "Think about it," he said, watching her from his seat without giving any indication of chasing her. "Do you want to die piece by piece, until you choke on the desert in your throat? Or do you want it to be quick?" His gaze drifted to the dagger at her belt.

"Fuck you," she spat. She turned her back on him and tried to ignore her sudden thirst. _Like hell. I didn't come all this way just to die here._

She brought a savage halt to a thought that suggested poetic justice.

* * *

_"One more day's hike, one quick battle against seemingly impossible odds, and we'll be ready to set sail and make history. Not even the dragons can forget us when we do what they can't."_

_She woke before dawn to keep the light from spying on her dreams._

* * *

"I said I was sorry!"

Glenn's voice was cracking, both from emotion and exhaustion. He had pressed his knuckles to his eyes until his vision became a field of novas, but the memories were flooding his mind, and no amount of pressure would dam them. "What else do you want?" he shouted. "I'd take it all back if I—"

_No, I wouldn't._

The thought brought his head up with gasp. Blinking away the silent explosions, he stared into the air in front of him, panting.

"No," he croaked. "I—if I'd known then, I'd... I'd..." The words wouldn't come, and he suspected that it was because they didn't exist. Defeated, Glenn slumped back down.

There was point in lying to himself. Even if he had known everything in advance, even if he had seen the consequences spelled out in blood, he would have made the same choices. He was sorry; he regretted; he wouldn't change a thing.

"Is that why I'm here?" he said aloud, half-expecting an answer. "So that I can't run anymore?"

With a start he felt water swirling around the parts of him that were in contact with the floor. Glenn leapt to his feet and saw, to his horror, that water was rushing toward him from the darkened end of the corridor. It had already reached the level of his ankles.

Frantic, he clawed at the walls, only to find them as smooth as mirrors. The current wrapped around his knees like a sahag's fingers.

"Don't do this to me," he pleaded, looking madly for a way out. As before, everything below the water level was thick darkness, and the sight of it made his legs shake. "Please, I can't swim..."

The water reached his waist. Giving in to his panic, Glenn tried to run downstream but found his movements precarious in the current. Each step made him feel as if he would slip, allowing the blackness to devour him.

_Don't think that way,_ he told himself, but he couldn't come up with an alternate line of thought. He was submerged up to his shoulders.

Casting off any efforts at rationality, he began to thrash. All he succeeded in doing was splashing himself, but he persisted. The realization that staying afloat would be futile if the water reached the ceiling only made his motions more desperate.

"Oh, God," he gasped, flailing as he felt himself swept along with the increasing force of the current. Only the tips of his toes scraped the floor now, and he choked on every wave.

His next breath rewarded him with water and burning lungs. Spasms racked his chest. With a final, desperate grab at the receding air, Glenn felt himself dragged below the reach of the light.

* * *

_They lay tangled together, two shades of autumn hair spilling over each other's shoulders. The silence was almost perfect; no voices came from the other tent, and no insects sang. The only sound was their breathing._

_"Are you happy?" he whispered, his lips brushing her ear. His body was warm with sleepiness._

_"Mmm." She traced the contours of his arm with her fingers, appreciating the fine interplay of muscle, flesh, and bone. Running her hand down to meet his, she turned so that he could see her smile. It was strange how important it was to him, as if he couldn't otherwise believe that she was content._

_"So'm I." With a soft sigh, he touched her cheek before drifting off to sleep._

_When the regularity of his breathing indicated the depth of his slumber, she slipped out his embrace and rose. Shrugging into her robe, she took her ax and crept out onto the darkened campground._

_They had pitched their tent near an old tree, and now she reclined against the trunk, staring into the sea of stars overhead. Some nights they were so distant that she couldn't even dream of them; other nights they were suspended inches from her face, and she could never explain the change._

_She heard the tiny rustle of the other tent flap, so even the silence of his footfalls could not hide him from her. But she didn't acknowledge him until he said, "What is it you're afraid of? Losing him? Or just losing?"_

_The stone in her glare was meant to tell him that he was wrong, but she went back to her tent and slid into her lover's arms with a sense of urgency. Burying her face in his shoulder, she clung to him as if he had already begun to fall away._


	3. Chapter 3

_And yonder all before us lie  
Deserts of vast eternity._  
        —Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"

They sat in rows along tabletops, their lidless eyes staring through him as if he were made of glass. Positioned as they were around the perimeter of the room, the walls' light was brightest at their backs, creating the illusion of ghostly halos. Their mouths were sculpted to be slightly agape, as if they had been interrupted mid-breath.

Dimitri's plans to escape were stymied by the door's having apparently been absorbed into the wall.

"All right," he said, trying to smooth out the jumping panic in his voice, "whatever you are—and I know you're something because you're clearly controlling things for a purpose, petty and malicious as that purpose may be—whatever you are, I demand answers." Pleased by his reasonable attempt at eloquence under pressure, Dimitri crossed his arms and stared pointedly at the ceiling. When no answers were forthcoming, he added, "Do you expect me to fall apart? I am not a sniveling child who will tremble at parlor tricks."

He sensed movement in his periphery vision, and the back of his neck tensed. As he turned slowly, he saw one of the dolls—a delicate piece of porcelain in a blond wig and a white dress—had its head tilted slightly so that it was staring at him with intricately painted eyes.

_No, it's not looking at me._ Forcing himself to breathe normally, Dimitri noted with disapproval that his left hand had clutched his brooch.

"Nonsense," he muttered. "Parlor tricks."

Another hint of motion rippled through the air. With a sharp shudder, Dimitri looked up to find that every doll's head had turned just enough to put its gaze level with his. Their eyes gleamed like mirrors.

"Do you expect this to frighten me?" he said, making a sweeping gesture with his left arm. _This is anger, not fear._ Leveling his staff at a cluster of lace-adorned dolls, he chanted his favorite fire spell, finishing with a dramatic twirl of his staff.

The staff declined to work, and the entirely unburnt dolls continued to stare at him.

"That's cheating." Dimitri glared at the ceiling, tapping his staff once against the floor in a gesture of defiance.

For a long while, nothing happened. The walls glowed, the dolls gazed, and Dimitri's patience waned. Finally he let his posture relax with a sigh and turned his eyes from the unresponsive ceiling to the porcelain faces surrounding him.

_At least the evil supernatural force cares enough to use the finest workmanship,_ he thought, leaning over to examine the nearest doll more closely. This specimen, representing a dark-skinned girl with hair and eyes the color of a midnight sea, would have parted a collector from a small fortune. The paints were warmly and precisely applied, the hair flowed almost naturally from the scalp, and the blue dress appeared to have been woven from silk. Every detail, down to the lines of the fingernails, was sculpted to be as life-like as the constraints of style allowed.

Something nudged a memory, and Dimitri frowned as he leaned in until his face was mere inches from the doll's. The doll returned the look with eyes that deepened his frown and drew a crease in his forehead. Inside the colored glass was the moon on the water, the mingled odors of fish and salt, and the callused hands of a fisherman's daughter...

He drew back with a start. The name was forgotten and the shape distorted, but there were memories etched into every line of the face, down to the slight, bemused curve of the lips. _"Where are you going? It's still dark. Didn't I invite you to stay?"_

Dimitri spun so that the doll could stare only at his back. _This isn't real. This can't..._ His thoughts trailed off as the faces now in front of him flashed with recognition. Their gazes slid from cold to accusing.

Then his eyes fixed on a doll almost hidden behind two others, only its head and scarf peering out from a fence of hair and dresses. Its skin was pale and flushed, as if it had just come from in from the cold, carrying a bucket of water so heavy it left angry red grooves on the fingers, blinking cerulean eyes and refusing to cry, deciding it wasn't worth crying for...

It was enough to break him. She was a sigh on a house of cards, a raindrop on a sandcastle, the single regret in a basket of callousness, and the only thing heavy enough to pull it all hellbound. _But I let it become disproportionate. It was a random collision of elements, nothing more. Why should I have staked my future on a fleeting sense of something I couldn't even name?_

The doll's hair fell like petals over her—its—face. It bothered him, as if he could see the wind slipping in to hide her. Breathing more rapidly than he should have, he reached to tuck the errant strands behind a porcelain ear.

When his fingers brushed the artificial flesh, the doll exploded.

Dimitri flung up his arms to protect himself from the blast. From his wrists to his elbows hot shards of porcelain tore at his skin, ripping open the sleeves of his robes. Screaming, he tumbled backward to the floor.

He lay for a long while, panting, with "What a stupid way to die" looping dizzily through his mind. When he managed to sit up and examine himself, he found that the damage was far less than he had feared; while his robe was tattered, most of the shrapnel had only grazed his skin, leaving shallow cuts and a few tiny shards to pick out.

_First things first, then._ Wincing, he set to work removing the embedded porcelain, keeping a wary eye on the apparently combustible dolls.

* * *

_Time was an arc, and she swung on it like a hanged man._

_Gravity dragged her down again._

* * *

He had been suspiciously quiet for some time now. This period of time corresponded roughly to how long Clovis had kept her eyes closed, which indicated that he had prepared some sort of nasty visual shock for her. She promised not to let herself react to it.

_Always comes down to reactions, doesn't it?_

_Shut up._

As much as she wanted to enjoy the reprieve from any empirical evidence of Cham, his absence left her with her least favorite thoughts for company. Memories marched in a small but noisy parade through her head, wearing grooves into her brain. Repeated attempts to think about anything else were overshadowed by a stunned pair of eyes and a nagging sense of thirst.

"Fine," she said, "we'll have a damn conversation or something. But not another word about suicide."

He didn't answer, so she slid her eyes open and found his arm poking through her abdomen to wave at her. "Out," she said firmly. In response, Cham leapt through her body and spun around to face her with a grin.

"But why not?" he drawled. "You're going to die any—"

"We're not talking about that either."

He shrugged, still smiling. "How about a game, then?"

The succession of thoughts that ran through Clovis's mind made her cringe. "Define 'game.'"

He caught her expression and laughed, a little less stridently than usual. In fact, he sounded very nearly sane.

The wheels began to turn in her head. It was clear that he knew more than he said, and if playing along kept him coherent and relaxed...

_Eh, worth a shot._ Clovis nodded.

"Then how about a question game?" he said at length, settling down opposite her. He was a few inches closer than she would have liked, but she was willing to overlook it in favor of keeping him rational.

Resting his chin in his hand, he continued, "It's an educational way to pass the time, right? One of us asks a personal question, and the other has to answer before asking one back."

"And this is different from a conversation how?"

"Because it's a game." Cham's eyes gleamed as he added, "If you don't answer, you lose."

Clovis shrugged. "Okay, I'll bite. What does the winner get?"

His grin showed more teeth than was necessary, and she had a feeling she was going to have to argue with him. "I think," he said, dragging out the words with relish, "that it shouldn't be what the winner gets, but what the loser has to give up."

She raised an eyebrow. "You realize we have to _agree_ on these terms, right?"

"I'm pretty sure we'll agree." He regarded her for a moment, his look almost soft, before the unnerving smile returned. "If you win, I'll tell you how to get out of here."

"Liar. If you knew, you wouldn't still be here."

Cham bristled. "I'm here because I'm dead. But I think I've seen enough to know how the living could get out."

Her heart fluttered, but she tried to appear unfazed as she asked, "And what if I lose?"

He stared at her. She was on the verge of yelling at him to stop playing with dramatic timing when she realized that his eyes were aimed at her dagger.

"No fucking way."

"Oh, you'd do it," he said cheerfully. "You don't have a clue how to get out of here, and you'd die anyway, sooner or later." He leaned forward until his nose was only a few inches from hers. "Correct me if I'm wrong."

"Back off," she growled, and he did so, grinning.

She sat for a while, drumming her fingers against the floor, wishing fervently that he would become corporeal just long enough for her to wring his neck. _Damn Orb. Damn castle. Damn ghost._

But what did she have to fear from telling a dead man her secrets? At worst, the game would go on indefinitely. She certainly wasn't petty enough to kill herself rather than confess something, and his mind seemed spotty enough that it wouldn't be too difficult to ask about something he'd forgotten. _And I'm not above making things up._ Crossing her arms, she said, "So how do I know you'll keep up your end?"

"You do realize it's impossible to lie in here, don't you?" At her expression, he chuckled. "That's how it works, you know. Puts knots in your tongue. Try it. Tell me you've never killed anyone."

Clovis felt as if ice had lodged in her throat. "I don't have to tell you anything."

"Exactly." Before she could retort, he added, "This was my idea, so I'll go first."

"The hell you—"

"What's your name?"

* * *

_The shadows were thick and looming, crushing her with their sense of imminence. It had been days since she had breathed without choking, and longer than that since she had breathed easily. The tent suffocated her._

_Pulling on her robe as quietly as possible, she took her ax and slipped outside. She suspected he would be waiting, too sensitive to the crackling anxiety in the air to keep watch properly, and would be perched like a spider in one of the trees. But even his prattle was better than being alone with her musings._

_She didn't start when he leapt down beside her. "Thought you'd stay with him tonight," he remarked, leaning against the trunk. She turned her back to him and kept a wary eye on the brush._

_"It's strange," he continued after a pause. "It would be one thing if you pushed him away all the time, but then you turn around and cling..." He laughed quietly. "We've had this conversation before, huh?"_

_She didn't point out that a conversation is traditionally two-sided._

_For a few seconds, the only sound was the drone of the crickets. He sighed. "It's not my place, right? It's just_—_ hell, you'd think people who've been together this long would at least _talk_. I always figured the elf would be the holdout, but you can see how that's gone." His hand touched her arm, and she brushed him off with enough force to discourage any rational person._

_He, of course, was aggressively irrational. "You're not still worried about his thing for the princess, are you?" he ventured. "Even he knew it wouldn't work out_—_ I mean, she's already betrothed_—

_A sudden rustling in the undergrowth provided an opportunity for her to swing her ax near his head. For a cathartic instant, the weapon cleaved air, flesh, and bone, thudding at last into the earth. His startled gasp mixed with the death-squeal of whatever creature she had just bisected._

_"Very nice," he said, peering over her shoulder as she extracted her blade. As casual as he tried to sound, she could tell that his heart was buzzing. "I'm not entirely sure what that used to be, but it's, uh, definitely not a threat now." He paused before adding helpfully, "It had teeth."_

_Of course it had been hopeless. It had been the ghost of dream, one that vanished when reality blew away the vapors. But what was to keep her own phantom intact?_

_To her growing annoyance, he was still talking. "Look, I get too attached. It's stupid, but it's going to bug the hell out of me if we part ways and you two aren't either a healthy couple or a healthy distance apart."_

_"I'll take the watch."_

_There was a pause, followed by a resigned sigh as he slunk back to his tent. Halfway there, he turned and cast a final look at her, a wan smile on his lips. "If we survive this," he asked, "what then?"_

_As his shadow melted into the tent, she turned and stared into the darkness, doing her best not to think._

* * *

When he woke, he was genuinely surprised not to be dead. That he was lying on his back, cold and naked, in total darkness didn't strike him as at all odd, but feeling air and blood flowing through him did. _Just goes to show what kind of day I'm having._

Wincing at the stiffness in his joints, Glenn sat up and blinked at the blackness surrounding him. "I'd like it if the walls lit up again," he said hopefully. When no illumination appeared, he sighed and took stock of the situation.

Aside from feeling as if he'd taken a trip down a waterfall, he didn't appear to be injured. There were certainly no broken bones, and a quick survey revealed no bleeding. If he was bleeding internally, he didn't particularly want to know about it.

"So I'm here," he said aloud, in case whatever force controlled the castle happened to be listening, "because I screwed up. And I'm guessing that half-drowning me is supposed to mean something, but it might just mean that you think it's funny to hear me beg for my life." Glenn paused in case the darkness decided to snicker. "Well, either way, I'd rather just talk things over. Could we stop trying to kill me for a while now?"

He wasn't really expecting an answer, but he felt it had been worth a try. Taking a deep breath, Glenn got to his feet and began groping for the nearest wall to lean against.

The walls appeared to have wandered off while he was unconscious.

_Calm down,_ he told himself. _This place can do that. It's just messing with my head._

But what did an ancient castle have to gain from playing with the perceptions of a lost boy? How bored did a supernatural force have to be in order to put such care into tormenting whoever wandered into its path? Shivering, Glenn huddled back into a ball on the floor, mulling over whatever vendetta he had unknowingly begun with the castle.

_And how does it know exactly where it hurts?_

He had been too young even to pretend that he was certified, but she hadn't asked and he hadn't volunteered the truth. What could he have said? That he was a runaway and a coward? That he had robbed the dead? He had blamed his parents, his temperament, and fate; he was running out of fingers to point. But she must have known. Maggie knew more than she let on.

Shaking his head, Glenn tried to pull himself back into the present, but the present was a void.

And he had created it.

_Is that what this is? My own mind coming up to haunt me?_ Seized with a sudden hope, he concentrated all his thoughts on leaving whatever prison he had created, on feeling the wind and sun of a free world, on waking up to discover he'd gone the other way at the fork and never felt the darkness in the Orb pulse beneath his chest.

After several minutes of trying, he gave up with a sigh and hugged his legs to his chest. "I didn't ask for this," he said bitterly, staring at the darkness in front of him. "How the hell is this _my_ fault? I just wanted to be left alone. I just—"

—_never knew what to say or how to explain myself, never figured out what I was doing or what I wanted, never thought past "can't" and "not yet" to "can" and "now," never thought past drifting because if you drift you can put it off forever, and never meant for any of this to happen, because sometimes I think I never mean anything at all_—

"—ran."

Glenn's head shot up as the light blossomed around him. The hallway had returned, and so had his underclothing.

He had never been so delighted to see his underclothing.

* * *

_The world had begun to slide the moment they crossed the threshold, long before his bleeding hand laid the crown on the throne. And as the darkness fell she remembered:_

_The girl trembling in the stone shadows, whispering, "I am here. Let me share your light."_

_The voices that washed away like dust in the rain, saying, "But why this? Wouldn't you do better as a fighter? Why do you want this?"_

_He was sun, moon, blood, and drug. She didn't know what not to say._

_"Why _did_ I want this?"_

_When the present reclaimed her, her hand was in his._

* * *

He sat in an unhappy lump on the floor, a pile of bloody porcelain chips beside him and his staff lying defensively across his lap. The dolls' eyes cut tunnels through him.

"I don't appreciate the symbolism," Dimitri said, glaring back at them. "And it's hardly my fault they were all idiots."

Usually, the hardest part was not laughing at a girl who believed that her little tragedies had captured the heart of a wanderer. The dreamers wanted to believe, and to say that he had felt himself forever transformed by such a pure and special soul could lure them completely out of reality. An empty universe would take any center.

_And she would have taken me, if I had taken her._

Scowling, Dimitri used his staff to push the remains of the doll out of sight, then stood. He had four solid walls and a few dozen potential explosives; it seemed to him that these could be combined in a meaningful, escape-inducing way. The only trick was working out how.

Gingerly, he used the tip of his staff to poke a figure resting against the wall and was unsurprised when it failed to explode. An even more cautious attempt to push one doll into another also resulted in nothing.

Dimtri spent a moment examining his right hand, which was still trickling blood from a wound left by a large shard of porcelain. It would probably leave a scar. _Assuming, of course, that it has a chance to heal._ Brushing the thought aside, he crawled under the nearest table, pulled the remains of his sleeve over his hand, and carefully reached up to tap a painted leg with a covered finger. The doll remained intact.

"So is it flesh you want?" he asked aloud, getting back to his feet. "Or would you be content with blood?"

Ignoring the silence that buzzed in the air, Dimitri began using his staff to gather a table of dolls into a pile, packing them tightly against the wall. The last explosion had left no mark on the surrounding figures, but it had done promising damage to the wood beneath it. If he could trigger enough simultaneous blasts, the stone might at least crack.

It was a ridiculous plan. It was also the only plan that didn't require him to tunnel through solid rock with a wooden staff.

Once he'd arranged the dolls to his satisfaction, Dimitri took a step back and squeezed the cut on his hand, collecting the blood in his palm. The blue light gave it an otherworldly sheen. Taking a deep breath, he threw the handful of liquid over the the dolls and dove for cover.

The moment stretched, snapped, and faded. There was no explosion.

Gritting his teeth, Dimitri crawled out from beneath the table and stood, glaring at the blood-spattered dolls. "If you expect me to slice off my skin for you," he said, "you underestimate me." The dolls remained silent.

In a fit of frustration, he brought the staff down on them like a club. The impact reverberated up his arms as if he had stuck boulders.

"This is what I meant by 'cheating,'" he said to the ceiling. "You've made them delicate and unbreakable at the same time." With a pointed look, he lifted a doll on the end of his staff and slung it into the wall, resulting in a loud collision and no damage.

"And if you're trying to kill me," he added, "they are less roundabout ways to do it."

As Dimitri swung his staff into a cluster of dolls and sent them scattering over the tables, a sparkle from the bottom of the pile caught his eye. A little digging uncovered milk-bright porcelain, a black labyrinth of curls, and tiny gemstones glittering from every exposed joint.

She still wasn't looking at him.

Dimitri's voice spoke ahead of him, trying to distract his brain: "This—you're mixing metaphors now, which is terribly sloppy of you, and you can't—you can't expect me to fall apart every time you put out something I've already..."

He trailed off, hoisting the doll up on the end of the staff. No matter how he moved it, the sharp green eyes focused on something away from him without making him feel actively ignored. The lips curled up at the ends, too taut and glossy to have ever known what it was to need without being needed.

_I never needed you._ The white legs hit the table with the sound of metal striking wood. Raising one arm to guard his face, Dimitri used the other to flick the doll.

He had been prepared to spend a long time picking shrapnel out of his skin. What he hadn't expected was to feel burning cold pain shoot up his arm, searing his fingers at the point of contact. Dimitri scarcely recognized the noise he made as coming from his own throat.

The next thing he was aware of was huddling in a corner away from the doll, clutching his hand to his chest and drawing in heavy, ragged breaths. That the pain was dulling didn't entirely comfort him.

"What in all hell?" he managed, prying his hand open enough to examine it. The skin that had touched the porcelain was an angry red. When he tried to tried to move the affected fingers, they only half-obeyed.

Tucking his hand inside his robe to warm it, Dimitri glanced back at the doll to find it lying on its side, staring casually past him at something more interesting. She had pruned away the sister who offended her aesthetics. Why should his blood have meant anything?

Dimtri's working hand fumbled with his brooch, scratching and pricking his fingers until he unpinned it. _In less than a minute I stopped crying that I didn't want a new mother and started wishing I could die to make you keep me. Love has nothing on contempt._ In what felt like the emptiest gesture of his life, Dimitri threw the jewelry at the doll, aiming for the head. It landed with a dull clink on the table.

_And I know,_ he thought sullenly, _something about empty gestures._ Without bothering to turn his back on the doll, Dimitri sighed and began trying to squeeze life back into his hand. He had just achieved tingling when something occurred to him, and he looked up to say, "I don't suppose you're trying to absolve me."

* * *

_Soft light washed over them both, giving a pale sheen to the pools and droplets of blood. They were too stunned to react; he had collapsed into her arms, and she had fallen awkwardly with him to the floor. All sound was soaked up before it reached their ears. For a split-second, the heavy crimson became an alien presence, a misplaced memory of another life. Then the bubble burst and reality filled the vacuum._

_"Astos!" His voice rang from the stone walls, overlapping the echoes of running footsteps. "You filthy traitor! Get back here!" He tried to raise himself from the ground, gasped, and fell back into her lap._

_She made hushing sounds as her fingers brushed the glow of magic over his abdomen. "Kill him later," she said. "First survive."_

_He coughed, shaking himself violently. "Let me go." Crimson flecked his lips and chin. "That bastard. I can still catch him."_

_She wrapped her arms around his chest and buried her face in his hair. "Stop it. You can't—"_

_A slow series of footsteps, much too loud for an elf to have made, came from the far end of the corridor. Her grip on him slackened._

_He howled. Rage and fear echoed from the walls as hot blood fell from his mouth to her arms, leaving pink froth on his lips. His lower body convulsed._

_"Help me," he panted. Fingers that could scarcely grip tugged at her robe. "I can't die like this—"_

_She ran._

* * *

"I met a Clovis once," he said thoughtfully before she could ask a question of her own. "It's your surname, right?"

She shrugged. "Hey, you already got your answer. It's my turn."

"I meant your first name. I gave you mine." Cham tilted his head until it rested on his left shoulder. "The scales are spun out of line."

_And there goes the sanity._ Clovis tapped her fingers against the floor and said, "Next time, specify. So... how'd you end up here in the first place?"

For a moment he seemed ready to argue, but instead he straightened his neck and leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I imagine the same way you did. Took a little fall with a star and a chimera, and didn't realize we'd brought along a vampire."

Clovis sighed. "Once again, I have no idea what you're talking about. And I don't think you do, either."

He ignored her, turning to stare into the darkness at the end of the hallway. "Took my blood," he muttered, half to himself, "and probably theirs. Made me trust him first. Clever bastard. Played a silver flute and led us all along the rope."

There was no point in trying to decode all of that. "So I'm guessing 'bid for glory gone back-stabbingly wrong.'"

"For three of us." Cham shrugged and turned back to her. "What light did you follow?"

"One that's heavy, about the size of my head, and probably Wind. Not exactly a light yet, either, but I'm stuck with it." Clovis grinned at the puzzled look on his face. "Say, that _is_ pretty entertaining."

Cham blinked, tilting his head from side to side as if he expected her to be more informative from different angles. "So that's why," he said at last. "Never wanted to come here. Got a chain in you."

Clovis snorted. "That, and an ax-happy pirate who thinks we need dragon mojo to kill the last two Fiends. My turn."

"Fiends?" Cham paused, then continued before Clovis could reclaim the conversation, "You mean people are killing them now? What brought that on?"

"Hey, didn't you _make_ the rules you're ignoring?"

He didn't answer. Instead there was a silver flash in his eyes, and he began muttering, "Wind, Fiends, and little holes where time falls in—backdoors and trapdoors, and they all make the stone echo—"

With a look that was equal parts desperate and predatory, Cham sprang forward, passing his arms through Clovis's legs. She had jumped to her feet and started to complain when she realized that he was speaking again, his voice low and shaky.

"So old. I hear it again and again, footstep and footstep and never step closer. Something we did. Maybe the elf did it. Smeared them over time. Made them forever." The skin on the back of Clovis's neck crawled as Cham continued, "Made little soldiers with hooks in their chests, too. Made whirlpools in time. Old magic. Bonds and breaks and only deals in blood." A short giggle escaped him, followed by laughter that was only a shade away from screaming.

"Okay," Clovis called over the noise, "I already know you're crazy. You can shut up now."

To her surprise, he obeyed. After a moment's shaking, Cham got to his feet and faced her with an oddly solemn expression.

"Forget it," he said. "Game's over. I concede."

"And the catch?" When his gaze remained earnest, Clovis narrowed her eyes and said, "No, really. What the hell?"

"I like you."

"That's a laugh."

"And you're going to help me."

* * *

_From one angle it was a map; from another, her own, it was a tunnel where the surface was lost and every exit was blocked with the same dirt. It wasn't falling if she dug her way down._

_All blood tasted like metal and dried into rust, dirty blood and clean blood and the blood that whispered its way out even when the bones were white. Blood was salt, and all of life was salt—sea and sweat and the erosion of years, leeching away everything wet and green._

_There was red. Where there was not red, she created it, and it gleamed with the knowledge that someone else paid for her mistakes. Then it faded to brown and dirt and salt._

_She had tried to cover it with other, darker crimsons. But stains that deep could only be burned out._

_The eye was the moment when the storm came into focus, all around and outside, the clarity as an instant left a scar in eternity, and if she fell in holding on she would sink, but if she fell in letting go perhaps she could float, swim clear of the wreckage, and find the frozen water floating in the brine, and maybe there were no second chances, but life was nothing if not one first chance after another, and the only trick was understanding choice._

_She found her voice again:_

_"I did. And I came back."_


	4. Chapter 4

_Thus, though we cannot make our sun_  
Stand still, yet we will make him run.  
        —Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"

 

"I just ran," he said again, giving the ceiling a hopeful look. When further clothing failed to materialize, Glenn sighed and stood, glancing up and down the hallway to see if his armor had decided to return. It hadn't.

_They didn't want to hear me. What could I have told them?_

"That's not true, is it?" he said aloud. "I mean, I don't know if it's true. I never—"

_I never tried._

When his bunkmate had rhapsodized about his dream of becoming a Conerian commander, Glenn had felt that the older boy was abusing the term. Dreams were breaths and reflections, living in the thin shelter of a blink. They came and went like sunbeams, and they never asked anything in return. Selfless in every sense.

And somewhere beyond lurked the future, a tangled knot of roads that could crumble at a moment's notice. They tried to force him to walk one, and all he did was dart aside, sliding from gap to gap. If the paths might fall apart beneath his feet, why try to walk them? If he was bound to lose his way, why not just drift from the beginning?

_Because one day you look down, and realize you've been following a path all along._

"I've never had a dream," Glenn said, letting himself slump against the wall. "Just dreams."

If he didn't have a destination, he could never be lost; if he never set down roots, they could never be torn up. And he could lie hidden, stagnant water reflecting the darkness of a cave, hearing the waves outside break themselves on the rocks and knowing that what never went up never had to come down.

And he could rot.

_They gave me their dream. I tore it out and never filled the hole._

No one had expected him to last more than a week. That he had held on for so long was less a testament to his tenacity than to his despair, which had kept him lurching along as periodic letters from home came to nip at his heels. Funny that anyone so adept at failure could still fear it.

_I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to be that. I didn't want any of it._

The problem had never been a lack of wanting. It had been a wanting of lacks.

"That's why," Glenn said aloud, staring up at the ceiling. "I want to find out who I am and where I'm going. I want to pick a dream and chase it." As he stepped away from the wall, he added, "And I want to be someone."

A soft hiss registered in his ears. As he looked around for the source, Glenn felt something cold and wet flow around his bare feet.

"Oh, for God's sake! Can't I stay dry for five minutes?"

The sound grew louder, and suddenly the water was swirling around his ankles and beginning to lick at his calves. The current pulled at him, trying to coax him back.

Glenn watched the dark water for a moment, then shook his head and took a step forward. "I get it," he said, waving a hand to indicate the hallway in general. "So since I get it, do we have to get me wet? I mean—"

A black wave hit him, splashing over his knees and almost breaking his balance. Glenn stumbled before steadying himself against the wall.

"Fine. We'll do it your way, then." Gritting his teeth, Glenn marched ahead into the current, ignoring the heaviness of his clothing as the water crept up it. Each step threatened to sweep him away.

Gradually he noticed that light was seeping into the hallway in front of him, illuminating a passage where the unnatural darkness had been—which ended in a third wall and a stout, bone-white pillar. It was as if someone had chopped the top three feet off one the columns in the vestibule and done an impressive job of misplacing it.

Glenn's reflexive burst of speed almost tripped him, and he caught his balance against the wall with a yelp. _Focus. Breathe. One foot, then the other._ But the water was still rising, whirling around his hips. _No. Focus. One step._

Something tugged at his concentration, and Glenn noticed that the current was slackening. By the time the water reached his waist, there was only the faintest suggestion of movement, making his progress slow but safe. More importantly, the column appeared to be coming closer.

There was a deep, quiet roar, like the sound caught inside a seashell. Glenn froze. For one protracted breath, the current stilled and died, and a sudden clarity left him wondering how all this water had flowed from a dead end.

The moment passed. Then the current returned and began to lower the water level, sucking everything back with enough force to create an undertow. Glenn hurried awkwardly forward, trying to compensate for the descending pull at his legs. He had almost reached the pillar when a cold spray made his nape prickle. _One step, right. Just make it a fast step._

Feeling a wave rear up behind him a like horse, Glenn dove forward, throwing his arms around the column. There was a second roar. In the spectacular light show that followed, he wasn't entirely certain whether he was drowning.

* * *

The others would break. He had confirmed this by using a table as a shield and carefully tapping the leg of one of a pair of isolated dolls, resulting in an explosion that did little further damage to his hand and failed to set off a chain reaction with the other specimen. Dimitri didn't feel that this qualified as "progress."

All the while, the doll that didn't belong lay where it had fallen, glittering and untouched. He brought his staff down on it in a fit of temper and succeeded only in giving his bad hand a shock.

_Impossible. Everything breaks._ Retrieving his brooch, Dimitri made a fumbling, one-handed effort to scratch the layers of paint. When that failed, he tried to rip the dress, which turned out to have the resistance of chain mail. He made another effort at using the jewelry as a projectile only to watch it bounce harmlessly off the doll's knee.

Ignoring the little voice in the back of his head that told him to leave it alone, Dimitri put his face level with the doll's, breathing heavily. The eyes focused somewhere past him. "What am I to you?" he demanded. "A nagging impression? An afternoon without your butler? An anecdote?"

_A lost trinket, a sheet of paper, and a drip of wax. Nothing._

His hands seized the doll's arms before his brain could intervene. Freezing-hot pain shot up his arms, blinding him as it burst into white rosettes over his vision. His fingers were dissolving. _Dropitdropitdropit_—

The metallic clang of the doll as it hit the floor echoed in Dimitri's ears as he staggered backward, watching in a haze as his arms shook like frightened rabbits. His only coherent thoughts were that he had been phenomenally stupid and that his fingers, while not dissolved, were a nightmarish shade of white. A whimper rode out on his next breath.

_Everything breaks, but she won't break because of me._

As the involuntary trembling began to fade, Dimitri instinctively reached for his staff and discovered that there was no feeling in his hands. He cursed and glared at the ceiling.

"You've made your point," he said bitterly. "If I promise to stop destroying myself, will you stop helping me do it?"

_But it's never enough to break myself, is it? I have to crash into everything around me on the way down._

Dimitri's daze wandered back to the dolls, which were still staring at him. "Blame her," he wanted to say, but he felt he'd been disingenuous enough with them. Instead he drifted a step forward, tripped on his fallen staff, and found himself tumbling toward the pile of blood-speckled dolls.

There was irony, and then was the helpless void in his gut, the lines in the sand that separated hilarity and terror until the wind blew them both into exhaustion, and the need for profundity lost in a storm of memory and panic. There was falling, and then there was the moment when gravity and force and accident and fate and a lot of other words that meant absolutely nothing to him boiled down to one that did: absurdity.

_But I want it to mean something._

The word "column" flashed into Dimitri's brain, followed by "white" and "worthwhile." Even as part of him was trying to work out how long the table beneath the dolls had been an abnormally short pillar, his stiff hands shot out and made a clumsy swipe at it. The numbness made it impossible to tell whether he'd succeeded until the explosion was mixed with a sharp tug and the sense that color had found a way to turn itself inside-out.

* * *

"Define 'help.'"

He knelt in front of her, in a way that made it impossible to tell whether he was aiming for supplication or mockery. "Do what you're already supposed to do," he said. "Don't die. Unless you want to die here, of course." Clovis scowled at him as he continued, "It's all tied together, knots and bows and your little chain. Snip them out and it all falls flat. Puts time back in a line."

She snorted. "What, you think dead Fiends mean a less dead you?"

"I think it means the walls crack like eggshells." Cham half-smiled, but his eyes were leaden. "I don't care where I go, as long as it isn't here. Do you remember what the sky looks like?"

"Blue. Now tell me how to get out."

Looking almost wistful, Cham sank lower and stared up her. "First promise me something."

Clovis crossed her arms. "So what the hell happened to 'impossible to lie in here'? The deal was I win, you spill."

"Never said _when_ I'd tell you, did I?"

Clovis opened her mouth to protest, then blinked. "Well, I'll be damned," she said at length. "I'd give you a point if I didn't want to strangle you so badly."

A smirk flickered over Cham's lips before collapsing into a frown. "Look, just—if you're ever in Gaia, tell my family I'm dead." For a beat, his eyes were lucid. "Don't tell them I'm like this."

"I look like a courier to you?"

"Swear it. You can't lie in here." When she didn't budge, he added, "Then I'll tell you."

Clovis sighed. _And you wonder why the dragons don't stay. Bastard._ "Fine. If I ever end up in that god-forsaken town, I'll tell someone who recognizes your name that you got yourself iced. Happy?"

"All the happiness here creeps away through the walls."

"Wonderful. Now tell me how to follow it."

Cham lay on his stomach and folded his arms, giving Clovis an unwelcome view of his death-wound until she sat down. "Funny thing about elves," he mused—"they never get lost. Getting you lost is how this place keeps you. Builds mazes out of your brain."

"Is there a point here?"

"Yes. Put an elf here, and it all unravels. Little bastards can go anywhere they want. Leave any time they want. That's what _he_ did."

Clovis tapped the sides of her head. "Hey, look how pointy my ears aren't. I don't give a damn how elves can get out. I want to know how _I_ can get out."

Cham shrugged. "Follow an elf."

"You cheating son of a—"

"Or stop being lost."

"I hate you so much."

"I'm serious." Cham pushed himself up on his forearms and leaned toward her, inclining his head. "Tell it what it wants. Accept where you came from. Stop pretending you didn't choose."

She regarded him for a moment. "Then why are you—"

"I'm dead. Nothing's left to change. Nothing here but a broken reflection."

"My heart bleeds." Taking a deep breath, Clovis gave her brain a moment to indulge in happier scenarios, in which she was burglarizing the wealthy and complacent, slitting the bottoms of purses, or rigging her way to success in card games and dart contests, or at least quashing the idiotic whim to see how her old haunts were faring in her seven-year absence. _Could have left on that ship for Crescent Lake. Academy's crawling with senile packrats. Damn, damn, damn._ As Cham settled into a vague, impatient humming, she cursed his killer for going for the heart instead of the larynx.

_Hell, it's not like I've got anything to lose._

"You really want to know what happened?" she snapped. "It wasn't—I didn't—" Clovis fixed her eyes on the wall, giving her thoughts a moment to unsnarl. "Look, the idea was to get the Orb, get out, and pawn it off on some chump. He—"

"Former mentor?" Cham broke in. When Clovis glowered at him, he shrugged and said, "Thought so."

Clovis automatically shot him a rude gesture as she continued, "He wasn't supposed to wake up. And it all went fine—the traps, the dogs, the dumb kid he paid a gold a day to watch the back door—until I picked it up." She paused, feeling the memory in her palms. "I just never thought it would be so damn _heavy_. And he was keeping it in his bedroom, which is practically asking for—okay, okay, it's not, but anyway, I kept it from hitting the ground. Still made enough noise to wake him up."

Cham nodded. "And?"

"And I panicked, okay?" Clovis took a moment to get her voice under control again, then said, "Damn stupid of me. If you're going to stab someone you're really, really not supposed to kill, there're at least a thousand places to hit that aren't the fucking heart."

"And?"

She glared at him. "And I just stood there getting blood all over me. What do you _think_ I did? Stuff went everywhere. Got me, the bed, the walls, everything but that goddamn Orb." Clovis's brain decided that this was more than enough, but her mouth kept moving: "Then I had one of those moments when your heart crashes somewhere around your feet and you realize you've completely screwed yourself over. I'm as good as dead in the guild. And out of it, too, if I set foot in Pravoka again."

"And you killed him."

"I—he wasn't even that bad of a guy. Kind of a jerk, used to throw things at me, but I threw stuff back and—" Her voice caught. "I killed him."

_And I hate that I care._

Cham sat up, giving her a vexingly soft smile. "You don't have a clue how to deal with regret, do you?"

"Sure I do. I ignore it until it goes away."

"Or the fact that you need people."

"I don't—shut up."

His eyes brightened to silver. "Exactly. And you try to prove nothing matters to you, but when you try to tear it out, it burrows into you and burns. Ignore it, and it eats holes through you."

_I didn't mean to. That wasn't what I wanted to do._

"But it's what I did," she said, before realizing that she was thinking out loud. She bit her tongue against the next wave: _And there are things I'm afraid of and things I feel guilty about, and things that matter to me and things I don't want to lose, and a lot of fine lines that I don't like to think about_—

A flicker of movement drew her attention, and Clovis glanced down in time to see Cham poke his finger through her chest. She sighed. "'Cause that just _never_ gets old, does it?"

"It's all old." He pulled back and said, "Go save the world, or whatever it is you're reeled into doing. And when you're done flopping around the boat, remember that you took an oath it might be dangerous to break." He flashed her a steel grin, then abruptly turned his back to her. "It's behind you. Get out."

He hadn't finished speaking before Clovis leapt to her feet and spun to see a squat, white pillar standing inexplicably less than a foot away from her. Her hand shot out for it, only to hesitate and clench.

"Oh, hell." Without turning, she muttered, "It's Penelope and I hope you suffer," before grabbing the top of the column and falling into a storm of lightning that ripped past too quickly for the thunder to catch up.

* * *

Glenn was the first, sopping wet and missing his armor, coughing and wheezing as he crawled forward onto the grass. His fingers dug into the turf like hooks.

Dimitri was next, thrown by a blast of heat over a dazed Glenn to crash in a black tangle of robes, clutching his hands to his chest. His staff followed a beat behind.

Clovis was last, hurtling forward in such a rush that she tripped and collapsed in a panting, cursing heap. The wounds on her knuckles re-opened as she pushed herself up.

In the next breath the castle doors slammed shut with enough force to make the earth vibrate.

"What the _hell_—" Clovis cut herself off and stared at Glenn. "Hey, didn't you go in there with armor?"

"I did," he replied tersely, pulling himself into a sitting position and returning her look. "Are you all right? You look kind of—"

"Shut up." Clovis turned to Dimitri and cocked an eyebrow. "What the hell did you do to your hands?"

"Nothing. We have other things to worry about right now, such as—"

"Frostbite." To the manifest surprise of the other two, Glenn grabbed one of Dimitri's hands and gave it a critical look before it was snatched back with a hiss. "Tuck your hands under your arms while I warm up some water, and no rubbing unless you want to lose your fingers."

Clovis looked blank, so Glenn sighed and made his way to the supply pile, from which he retrieved a canteen and a pan. "Go on," he added, gathering the nearest twigs and brush together. "Trust me."

As Dimitri reluctantly complied, Clovis blinked out of her fog, snatched the canteen, and guzzled a bit before coming up for air. "So you know all this how?"

Glenn held out his hand. "Onrac has cold winters. And I need that." When Clovis shrugged and took another gulp, he shot her a dark look and headed back to the supply pile, only to look up with a start mid-way. "Um, I don't see Maggie any—"

"She knew what was going to happen," Dimitri cut in sourly. "I couldn't possibly care less whether she made it out."

Clovis coughed, spraying a mouthful of water over the ground. "Holy shit," she wheezed. "So the elf was—and she was—if she isn't already dead, I'm going to—" Another hacking fit drew impatient looks from the other two.

"Are you doing that on purpose?" Glenn set down the flint he'd been grappling with. "Going to what?"

"Wondering that myself," said Maggie. She allowed herself a moment's wry satisfaction as she emerged from the tree cover. "Orbs might not take kindly to it."

There was a loud cough, followed by Clovis yelling, "You _set this up_, you lying, sadistic, self-centered—"

"Hello, pot, I see you've met kettle," Dimitri muttered. Clovis threw her canteen at his head, resulting in a dull thunk and a cockeyed hat.

"—bitch," she finished, a bit stiffly. "Why the hell did you bring us here?"

Maggie shrugged and leaned back against a tree. The blade-thin smile she could feel playing over her lips was probably doing nothing to placate her party, but she was finding it difficult to care. "Don't believe in Bahamut's blessing?"

"You told me yourself the dragons don't matter." Glenn was unusually calm, perhaps because his attention was focused on his fledgling fire. "This was something else."

"So allow me to guess," said Dimitri, giving Maggie the most caustic look he could manage with his hands jammed into his armpits. "You took us through the Marsh Cave by promising us treasure, 'happened' to find the crown, killed Astos to—well, God knows why you wanted to kill Astos—"

"I think he tried to kill her," Clovis chimed in. "The metaphor lost me there."

Dimitri shot her a puzzled look, but he turned back to Maggie to finish, "And then you returned here because you felt you had unfinished business. Am I right?"

"I'm blaming you for that lunatic ghost, too," Clovis added. "Just so you know."

Glenn looked up. "Ghost?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"But you brought—"

"Shut up." She hesitated, then said, "Dammit, don't tell me I'm the only one who got a ghost."

The conversation had gone on long enough. "We can make the ship by nightfall," Maggie decided, striding over to the supplies. Both Dimitri and Clovis glowered at her and opened their mouths, but another voice beat them to it.

"Not if Dimitri wants to keep his fingers." Glenn's face suggested a certain level of internal panic, but he continued, "We just need a little time to thaw them out. I mean, um... Hey, the water's warm!" Cheeks reddening, he took the pan of water off the fire and deposited it in front of Dimitri.

Clovis quirked an eyebrow. "Well, I'll be damned. That sounded almost like a spine."

"Spines don't make noise," Dimitri said, gingerly lowering his fingers into the water. "And furthermore—" His face contorted. Before he could pull back, Glenn had grabbed his arms and held them in place.

"It's supposed to hurt," he said. "Just hold still." As Dimitri muttered something under his breath, Glenn set his hat straight, then turned back to the others. "So, Maggie, would you mind telling us—"

She gave him the look that had never failed to silence him in the past, and his new-found nerve buckled. But they would demand to know, and she had forfeited the right to withhold everything. _Would have been simpler if they died._ But she didn't mean it, not if she was willing to face herself, and why would she have pulled them along if she hoped for nothing more than their deaths? The Orbs forced them together, but she had forced them inside.

_Things change here_, he had said, but he hadn't meant it. He was static under his skin. _Until he cracked. And whose fault was that?_

Clovis's voice cut through her fog. Apparently the thief had decided to construct her own story, which all but confirmed the identity of the ghost. "So she came here with an evil elf, possibly an evil _vampire_ elf—"

"Astos wasn't a vampire," Dimitri said through gritted teeth.

She ignored him. "I'm not sure if she was the star or the chimera, but the other one was, uh, someone else. And there was an annoying prick who never shut the hell up. Then there was stabbing, and I'm pretty sure she followed Astos out." Clovis took out her dagger and began to fidget with it. "Look, I got the whiny crackpot version. Not too clear on the details."

"You don't say." Dimitri shifted, winced, and glared at Maggie. "You'll have to tell us eventually."

Glenn looked up from where he had been sulking and said, "At least what's relevant. If any more buildings are going to try to drown me..." He trailed off, studying the others' faces. "Actually, I don't want to share."

Clovis shrugged. "I'm not arguing."

During the subsequent lull, Maggie tried to pare "relevant" down to a sentence. The process was interrupted when Glenn blurted, "I took my Orb from a dead man."

"Hey, me too." Clovis looked stricken for a second, then gave the group a defensive glare. "Castle's still doing it. The first person to ask gets a demonstration for an answer."

They both turned to Dimitri, who shrugged as much as his position would allow. "My Orb found its way to the Conerian black mages' guild, which I happened to be visiting, and I fell under its thrall, whereupon it was foisted off on me. Some of us are civilized, you know."

"I didn't kill anyone!" Glenn protested. "I was running, and he was just _there_." Guilt flickered over his features, and he added, "And, um, I was running away from the fighters' training camp outside of Coneria. But I didn't kill anyone."

Clovis narrowed her eyes at him. "So you're not—"

"Not even close. I'm two years short of certification."

"You're _sixteen_?" She wrinkled her nose. "I thought you were kind of scrawny, but... Shit. I feel dirty."

Dimitri smirked suggestively. "What, you—"

"_No_. That's your bag."

"You're lecturing me on morality?"

"I'm not playing a decade down."

"You are, however, a professed criminal."

"Damn straight." Clovis grinned and twirled her knife between her fingers. "Fourth class, going on third."

"And once again, the point is lost in an ethical wasteland."

There was a pause, during which Glenn gave them a hopeful look. "So I'm mature for my age?"

On the ship, Dimitri tended to lock himself in a cabin away from the sailors, Clovis bothered anyone off-duty, and Glenn stayed a safe distance from the rail, looking out of place. None of them came near the captain. Allowing time for post-confession bickering, they still had a good chance of reaching the vessel by sunset.

Maggie cleared her throat for attention. "The Conerian princess was kidnapped two years ago. You lot remember?"

Glenn nodded as Clovis said, "Eh, not really."

"Of course." Dimitri's voice was dangerously dry. "Assuming you weren't busy extorting widows and orphans, I imagine you were distracted when the Orbs appeared very shortly afterward."

Clovis snapped her fingers. "Oh, yeah, _that_ princess. Thought they killed the guy who took her."

"He died twenty years ago, too," Maggie replied. "Didn't stop him then."

"Say, that's a neat trick."

There was a moment's pause as the implication sunk in.

Dimitri was the first to speak. "So in other words, everything is your fault."

Clovis grumbled something that included "robbing that academy blind."

"To be fair," said Glenn, a bit cautiously, "this might not a bad thing. I mean, there's destiny mixed up in this now, right? Don't the Orbs like destiny?"

"I was under the impression that the Orbs prefer making blood sacrifices out of their bearers." Dimitri cast an irritated look at his hands. "Haven't they thawed enough yet?"

Glenn persisted, "But we're the first people to come out of that castle—" Maggie caught his gaze—"in a while, and there's got to be some _reason_ it let us go—"

"What, 'cause there's no such thing as chaos?" Clovis rolled her eyes. "We don't want to die either, kid, but what the hell makes you think this means anything?"

Dimitri laughed derisively. "Which means so much coming from someone who has repeatedly evinced a terror that her actions have consequences."

Maggie headed off Clovis's effort to retaliate. "Hands?"

Still looking a bit put-out, Glenn peered into the pan. "I think they're thawed. The color's back."

"Then we're going," she said, hefting her supplies.

Discontent hung in the air, but they seemed unwilling to argue and risk spilling any further secrets while the castle was still humming in their bones. Glenn set to work re-packing his supplies and wrapping Dimitri's hands.

"Wait a minute," said Clovis, getting to her feet. "I want my damn reward. Did anyone bring back a souvenir?"

Dimitri glared at her. "The boy and I both lost things, actually. I don't suppose your phantom friend—"

"Shut up."

Maggie's ears pricked. In a single, smooth motion she turned and brought her ax down in the brush, resulting in a squeal, a thunk, and a startled yelp from Clovis, who had been closest to the blade. Before the thief could complain, Maggie reached down into the vegetation and retrieved a bloody rat tail, to which a large portion of the rat was still attached.

"I realize that Bahamut isn't terribly aware of the world around him," said Dimitri, giving the thing a dubious look, "but surely he'd notice if we tried to pass off the bottom third of a rat as 'proof of courage.'"

Clovis sniggered. "At least we'd be giving a rat's ass." To the others' looks, she added, "I can think of worse ways to cope."

"He won't," Maggie said, ignoring the interruption. "He smells the magic." When a glance confirmed that the party was close enough to being ambulatory, she secured the tent to her back and stepped toward the forest.

"Wait." Glenn's voice hovered somewhere below resolve. "Why did you drag us into it?"

"Why don't you ponder that on your own while you carry my staff for me?" suggested Dimitri.

Maggie didn't turn, but she stopped walking long enough to say, "Anchors."

There was a pause as the party fell in behind her. "That didn't answer my question," Glenn muttered.

"Eh, what can you do?" Clovis snorted. "We're all pretty fucked up, anyway."

"I'm beginning to suspect," said Dimitri, "that this was a cleverly disguised group-bonding experiment."

"Well, it backfired. The second the last Orb lights up, I'm throwing it at your heads."

"All our heads?" asked Glenn.

"I can bank a shot."

"And here I was under the impression that you could scarcely lift your Orb."

"Doesn't matter. The kid would take my side in a fight."

"You said you were going to throw it at me, too. And I have a name."

"Aww, see how close it is to a spine? It's like that stuff sharks are made of."

"In this case, the word that you're fumbling for is 'seafood.'"

"You know, I _am_ the one carrying your staff."

Maggie's lip twitched as she tuned them out. Later there would be debate, varying degrees of confession and denial, and anger that rolled in and out like the tide. Beyond that lay wilderness, but every mastered memory was another paving stone.

They turned north.


End file.
